Have I ever mentioned how much I love teaching? How I enjoy the energy of a focused class? I just was born to explain, I think. I’m at least a third-generation instructor/teacher on my mother’s side, second-generation on my father’s side. I tried very hard to avoid my destiny. I’m glad I didn’t avoid it forever, because teaching is very rewarding for me.

Today was the first day of my new term at Foster Center. I started my day with a computer class of 7, six of them retirement age, learning the very basics (one woman specifically requested a lesson in how to turn the computer on and off). I love teaching this sort of group! They are smart, but they *feel* dumb because they have not been trained yet. They are motivated to learn when nobody makes them take a class. Loved getting to know them.

Then I had computer lab time, and one adult from class stayed to practice a little. She played solitaire on the computer. She learned about “drag and drop” and she even learned about my favorite command: Undo!

After lab was CityKidz Knit! I totally forgot it was a new term. I had a lot of new kids. I had so many kids that a few felt crowded around my table so they sat on the floor. I think I had eight kids who had been there before at least three times, one who had been one or two times, and five who had never knit with me before. One of the new kids had tried to knit with a friend… a neighbor who learned to knit from me! She said she had not been able to make it work before, but clearly she had tried enough times, because I only had to show her how to make 2 stitches and she was off and running.

I tell you, it’s very exciting to have that many kids. However, I get plain exhausted when I have that much to do. It takes at least 5 minutes per child to teach brand new knitters. That makes things pretty boring for the child who is last. The kids, especially those who needed to wait, were very good.

My Knitting
In my own knitting news, I’m really close to finishing two different pair of toe-up afterthought heel socks but I just have too many things going to actually spend time on those.

I am working on the very last phase of a sock design for publication, as well. I’m pleased, for many reasons. One of the reasons is that I got to do this sock in my own favorite colors. Often I have to go with a theme for an issue, and that means I work in colors I normally would not touch. But this one is all me and I am very pleased.

Of course, I can’t show the whole design before it hits the press. However, here is a very tiny teaser of my colorway.

My Classes This Week
Tomorrow I have CityKidz Knit! again, and in the evening I teach Toe-Up Socks at Foster Center. That will be much fun! Saturday I teach Polymer Clay at Heritage Spinning in Lake Orion (north of Pontiac, not that far from the Silverdome). It looks like we have 7 people in the polymer class. In that class, the more people we have, the more creative energy happens. I’m very happy that we have that number. It will be a wonderful time!

Sunday I teach beginning knitting at JoAnn, our project is a simple bag in bulky Wool-Ease. I actually like that yarn more than I expected. I don’t like the thinner Wool-Ease yarns but for some reason the feel of the bulkier yarn is pleasing to me. I’m not much for the beige/natural color, though.

That is one thing about teaching for a large organization. They tell you what to do, down to the project and the yarn. I don’t love that part, but I really want to reach knitters anywhere, any way… and I am very good with beginners, who I think I may reach more easily through JoAnn than through community education.

Once I meet new knitters, it should be easy to connect them with other knitters (in our guild, for example) and they will be exposed to yarns that (personally) I love better than the one required in this corporate class. And they will find the good life, where we spend our free time and days off, at good Local Yarn Shops (even Not-Quite-Local Yarn Shops, perhaps). Our beloved LYS’s, where the *Wonderful Stuff* can be found, and good instruction, and quality knitting tools, and many other things I don’t know what I would do without!

I’m staying busy! And I’m staying happy. It’s a good life.

Well I spent the day in Ann Arbor again, but this time I drove alone. It was sunny when I left but it was cloudy when I got there and sprinkling rain by mid-afternoon.

First thing, I was trying to meet up with some Michigan knitters from online, but they had children with them, and I was running late… so they left before I got there. I guess there were 4 of them so they did have a good time. I’ll try to meet with them some other time.

After that I spent some time in downtown Ann Arbor, walking quite a distance (before the rain hit) and really enjoyed it. (See picture of a tiny, artful, red hot dog booth that has been there a very long time.) I ended up at Zingerman’s Deli (again, my all time favorite haunt in Ann Arbor) with a pot of good Organic Hojicha tea from Japan, and my laptop. I did some boring but easy number-crunching on my laptop in preparation for taxes (I’m much later than I wanted to be this year), but enjoyed being in that environment and really enjoyed my tea.

Why did I hang out in town so long? Because there was another knit in at night! The crew that meets at Arborland Borders books on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday nights, meets at a little asian tea/coffee house on 4th Street, when there happens to be a 5th Tuesday. So once I finished my tea at Zingerman’s, I went to Eastern Accent and had a small pot of Genmaicha… green tea with toasted rice in it. It’s very satisfying on a cold day.

I talked to friends until 10pm and then my cell phone rang. It was People Magazine (yes, really) wanting to interview me about Freecycling. I was expecting the call, as we sent one another emails yesterday.

My story is more interesting than other stories about Freecycling, because it reaches further than my personal life. Most stories either say: I wanted something, I posted that I needed it, someone offered theirs to me, we worked out how to transfer the item(s). Or… Someone posted something I could use, I asked for it, we transferred the item.

However… for me, it is “I posted on the freecycle list that I could use functional computers for my community center computer room. Somehow the word got out, and about 6 weeks later I got a call from Foster, Swift, Collins and Smith, saying they had heard that I could use some older computers.” The guy at the law firm is not on Freecycle, but somehow the word got to him anyway.

In the end, I got about 15 functioning computers and a lot of useful parts for my computer room. The machines are significantly better than those I had before. And the whole community benefits, not just two individuals transferring ownership of something. So I’m a good interview. (Mind you, I’ve given away rollerblades through Freecycle, and acquired fake fireplace logs and a large microwave for dyeing wool, in addition to the computer gift, but those stories are not interesting enough to make a national publication.)

We’ll see… maybe Lansing will make it into People magazine. I can’t spend time thinking about it… if I do, I just worry about getting quoted properly. I need to remember that the main point of her article is how Freecycling started… especially, she is focusing on the person who got the freecycling movement rolling. I’m a tiny speck of lint in the big picture.

After being interviewed on my new cellphone (thank goodness I had one today), I drove home. I have a pair of toe-up, afterthought heel socks ready for a ribbed 1-2″ top and then heels. Actually, I have another pair done the same way, that just needs a tiny bit more done on the heels themselves and they are done. It’s just that heels take a bit of thinking. Maybe at the allergist on Thursday…

Hi, all. What a fine spring day it is here in Lansing, today. There are folks pushing strollers and walking dogs (and rollerblading, see picture) everywhere on every street I can see from my window. I have the front door open right now… yes, it’s a little chilly but I don’t care!

I took a little stroll through the neighborhood looking for flowers. I found some yellow crocus a half a block from here, but the picture didn’t turn out well. The guy at that yard told me about some blue crocus a block or two from him, so I went down there. Not only were there crocus, but some small iris in purple. So pretty! I was so happy! I was even warm enough in my leggings, wool sox and mohair sweater… without a coat or my trademark beret. I did wish I had gloves, so I hid my hands in the sleeves of my big sweater. What a lovely short walk I had.

On top of that, I’m just thoroughly enjoying the ability to sing here alone in my house with my Annette Hanshaw music. I have had over four months where I could not sing at full strength, and I was missing several notes from my range. However, just since about last Friday, I can sing with my “real” voice. I’m so relieved! It was just great to sing on Saturday with Abbott Brothers and not worry whether I could do this or that song.

I have had a good handful of songs (mostly 1920’s tunes sung by Ms. Hanshaw) I have wanted to learn since fall. Unfortunately, I was afraid to pursue learning them. I have been practicing the words over and over but I couldn’t actually sing them much. Poor Brian, I may detour his plans for the evening and insist that he play some music with me!!! I’m so happy!

Now for the business of the day: I have a Toe-Up Socks class offered at Foster Center starting this Thursday. The class is 6:00pm to 8:30, on Thursday April 1, Thursday April 8, and Tuesday April 13. Is anyone out there waiting until the last minute to register? I have a few but not enough for it to “go,” yet several folks told me they were interested. If you are interested, it costs $33 for City of Lansing residents, $49 for out of the city. Register by calling 517/483-4233, if you wish. I know not everyone is interested, but I hate to let down those who signed up well in advance. We have to cancel on Wednesday if we don’t have enough folks, because we need time to call people. We hate for someone to show up and be surprised that their class is not happening.

Spring is here!!! Spring is here!!! Oh, I’m ready to sing a million songs! Earlier I was singing “Tiptoe through the Tulips” although a song about violets might be more appropriate today! Right now I am singing “If you want the Rainbow, you Must Have the Rain.” It fits, doesn’t it?

Well, the first daffodil has opened. I took the picture with flash, in the dark, when I got home from my knit-in at Emils. It’s not any official event, just some people I know who knit or want to learn, so I invited them to join me.

We had 4 people today and one was a beau (a man who came with my friend) who didn’t knit but was very good company in spite of it! That friend (the one with the beau) is retired, the other is a Junior in High School. It was a great group. I love mixing up social circles like that. It seems so artificial to have people all the same age/gender/cultural background, you know? The world is so varied. I love celebrating that.

I just love Emil’s restaurant. Good food, good service, locally owned. Our waitress was great. She even moved us to a bigger table after we ate, so that we’d have more room to knit. Very cool.

I showed the younger knitter how to bind off in rib and cast on in rib. I also showed her how to pick up stitches in rib once she’d ripped out a bit (her scarf was much longer than she liked, when she tried it out, so she ripped it out and was much happier with it).

The other friend, who had not knit in a while (she did cables once upon a time), started a toe-up sock with Cascade Fixation yarn. She hopes her sister will like them. I hope so, too!!! This friend is a dance friend, and it was great to have her at a fiber hangout!

I was indoors away from windows all day except for 5 minutes of sunny bliss! I was glad to have that five minutes. I think the daffodil liked the sun too!!! Let us hope for more sunshine tomorrow, when I can sit next to a window much of the time.

Well, what a Saturday I had. I took the day off from working at Foster Center. I did have a dance rehearsal in the morning, and then I went to a knitting workshop sponsored by our local knitting guild.

What a great time that was! The class was taught by Margaret Radcliffe of Maggie’s Rags. It was on novelty/luxury/designer yarns. I’ve been using all these novelty yarns for my ColorJoy Stoles, and enjoying them. I was interested to see her take on the same thing.

Well, as usual I was surprised (I don’t know why) that the class focused a lot on using all these yarns for sweaters. I know that nearly everyone else who knits seems to knit sweaters if not most of the time, a good portion of the time. I have knit 80 pair of sox and 2 adult sweaters. I have done many other smaller items: four pair legwarmers, perhaps a dozen hats, a handful of handwarmers/wristwarmers/fingerless gloves, some cellphone holders/eyeglass holders, and a good handful of ColorJoy Stoles.

But even though most of the students in class were focused on sweaters, I learned a great deal. I learned why one of my ColorJoy stoles is not as satisfying to touch than the others. I learned that one of my eyelash yarns (microfiber) was horrible to knit alone, but just lovely when knit as a second strand with some Dale Baby Ull in a lighter color. I learned more about the inherent strengths and weaknesses of several different types of fibers… alpaca, silk, mohair, wool, cotton, even quiviut.

I learned some of the tricks sweater knitters can use to accommodate the weaknesses of these fibers. I learned a little about the structure of yarn and how that influences the behavior of the knitted fabric. I learned that often times, going down several needle sizes creates a much more stable fabric in these yarns. I learned a little about other things they had learned in the morning class about knitting shapes, when Maggie related the lesson to the morning session as well as just by talking to those who took the class, during our breaks.

I would really recommend any workshop you can get, taught by Maggie. It was more than worth my entry fee.

After the workshop, a good handful of knitters (some met by their spouses) convened at Altu’s restaurant for dinner. Many folks had never been there before, many had not tried Ethiopian food before. I was very pleased they came out. We had 14 folks in our group. Some of the folks stayed around for the Abbott Brothers’ performance. That meant a lot to me.

I took two photographs but the second one just did not work out well at all. Sorry to Sarah Peasley and Margaret Radcliffe, who were just beautiful that day but the photograph as a whole did not work. This other photo is a lot of folks, some of whom were from out of town (two from Ann Arbor, one from the Grand Rapids area) and some spouses whose names I don’t know… so I am not going to name everyone. Suffice it to say we had a great group!

Thank you to Tracy A/Sweatergirl for being the coordinator of the workshop weekend (they had classes Friday/Saturday/Sunday, though I took just a half-day workshop myself). Tracy has enough to do already (she is expecting her first child in early May) and yet she was cheerful and efficient in her scheduling work for this workshop. Go, Sweatergirl!!!

Well, I’m on a roll with poetry and quotations this week, I guess. It is 2:45 and the sun has been hiding all day. It’s so dark it feels like dusk. It’s 63 degrees F, actually nice and warm.

However, it has been raining off and on for enough days now that there are little streams of water flowing over the floor in my basement. This is the type of house and basement we have (the house was originally built in 1904). It is definitely utility rather than luxury, and that is actually why I have room to dye wool… I can just hose off the floor when I am done, if need be. It’s perfect in a lot of ways. But when the water just keeps coming from the sky… well, it has to go somewhere and a little of it makes itself comfy indoors, long enough to make its way to the drain in the floor.

Today will be a dyeing day but it is getting started late. I need a lot of sleep when it’s rainy season, because of my allergies. I went to bed late, got up late. Now I’m getting my act together and will be making some pretties in a few hours.

Meanwhile, I’d love to share a poem with you. This book is long out of print but it can often be found on the used market. There is even a cassette tape of the poems being read aloud by some esteemed actor whose name I can not remember right now. The book is full of excellent poetry by children, compiled in the 1960s. Here is one of my favorites:

Rain
©1966 by Adrian Keith Smith
Age 4
New Zealand

From the Book:
Miracles, Poems by children of the English-speaking world
Collected by Richard Lewis
Simon and Schuster, 1966

The rain screws up its face

and falls to bits.

Then it makes itself again.

Only the rain can make itself again.

———

I’m so glad somebody valued this child’s words so much, they took the time to write them down. What a gift!

Aaaaaaaahhh…. It was 71 degrees F today for a few minutes, and the sun shone for a short while. It’s already down to 66 again, and it’s only 2:30pm, but I will be sure to appreciate what I had for a moment.

I went out on the side yard looking for violets. The violets are weeds, but we make sure not to put any weed killer on the lawn, as they give me more pleasure than the grass they co-exist with (you will notice that the grass is not yet green, but the violets are). I found two flowers in bloom and one bud ready to pop. We also have two daffodils that are showing yellow in their buds.

Someone wrote me today that they found my (very old but still valid) poetry and quotations website, and the quotation by Martha Graham was helpful to them. The note made me go back and read a little more of the quotations again. I rediscovered a quote from Maya Angelou, a woman I’ve heard speak twice and who has really influenced me. I was delighted that she talks about life being art. So I offer you this today:

“Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. We leave our homes for work, acting and even believing that we will reach our destinations with no unusual event startling us out of our set expectations. The truth is we know nothing, not where our cars will fail or when our buses will stall, whether our places of employment will be there when we arrive, or whether, in fact, we ourselves will arrive whole and alive at the end of our journeys. Life is pure adventure and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.
— Maya Angelou
Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

It was a barely-spring sort of day Wednesday. It rained off and on, sometimes quite hard. Nothing is blooming, but I did notice that the tulips at Foster Center have some strong leaves coming up.

I had 11 knitters if I remember right. Several I had not seen for a long while, a few were new. They had the giggles (I think they had a half day of school today) which did not help their knitting much but at least they were happy.

A sort of wonderful thing happened when I was teaching an adult class. Due to some circumstances, I had only one adult student in the room Wednesday noon, and so it looked as though my room were open for computer lab. Twice, a child came into my room, saying hello first and then asking for a hug. How sweet! These days you can not approach a child for a hug, it must be the child’s idea. I mean, these kids came in (one with her mother), kids I’ve worked with for a few years now, and for some reason… be it the rain or the day off or just a mood they had… they wanted a little reassurance. I know I have a special place in their lives… I’m not a teacher and I’m not a parent, but I’m old enough to be an authority rather than a teen activity leader. I work hard to treat them with respect. I want the love I feel for them to show, through my actions rather than saying it out loud. Apparently I’ve done it right at least for a few of my kids. It makes me feel good.

—
Brian is really focused on recording some songs which were written between the late 1800s and 1923. His project is really zipping right along. It seems every night by the time I get home, he has recorded at least three tracks of a new song. I love listening to him, he is a very fine ukulele player. It’s wonderful to my ears, his work.

Tuesday night I didn’t sleep well, I kept waking up afraid I had overslept. I am ready to crash tonight. Brian is taking a day off tomorrow. We plan to go out for breakfast or lunch together, before I go to Foster Center. That should be delightful.

As for my creative self, I’m working slowly on finishing some afterthought-heel socks for myself. I’m also excited about my knitting workshop I’m taking on Saturday. I love my local knit guild… we got Margaret Radcliffe of Maggies Rags to come in and teach us this weekend. I’m just taking the Saturday afternoon class, about using all sorts of types of what she calls luxury yarns (includes unusual fibers such as alpaca, as well as novelty yarns). I will enjoy hearing how she approaches the subject. I’ve been working with novelty yarns for a while, but there is always something to learn. I love taking classes.

After our workshop, it looks like we are going as a group to Altu’s restaurant for dinner. I’m excited, not only because I love to share my favorite restaurant with friends, but also because at 6:30 our band, Abbott Brothers, is performing. Maybe some of my knitting friends will stay to hear us play. I really hope they do. It would mean a lot to me if it did happen.

However, right now it is time to be off to bed…

I am in the midst of doing publicity for our Abbott Brothers band and other “Appearances,” from The Fabulous Heftones to Habibi Dancers’ annual concert, to several knitting/polymer clay/art classes and workshops I am offering.

It occurs to me that maybe some of you would be interested in one or the other of these. If this is not true for you, forgive the interruption. I will return tomorrow with life as art and art as life!

For those who *are* interested, here is a schedule as it stands today:

March 27 (Sat.) & May 22 (Sat.) 6:30 - 8:30pm No Cover	Abbott Brothers Band Good Time Music	Altus Ethiopian Cuisine 312 Michigan Ave., East Lansing (near The Dollar) 333-6295
March 29 Monday 5:30pm - 8:30pm	Socknitting Class: Peasant Heels for Self-Striping Yarns	Foster Community Center Lansing, MI 200 N. Foster Avenue 483-4233 for Registration
April 1, 8 (Thursdays), & April 13 (Tuesday) 6:00 - 8:30pm	Socks - Toe Up Knitting Class	Foster Community Center Lansing, MI See above
April 3 Saturday 9:00am - 4:00pm	Buttons & Beads: Polymer Clay for Fiberartists	Heritage Spinning & Weaving Lake Orion, MI (248) 693-3690 http://heritagespinning.com
April 10 (Sat.) & June 25 (Sat.) 6:30 - 8:30pm No Cover	The Fabulous Heftones Brian & Lynn Singing the Ditties of the 20’s & ’30’s	Altus Ethiopian Cuisine 1312 Michigan Ave., East Lansing (Near The Dollar)
April 12, 19, 26 (Mondays) 6:00 - 8:00pm	Beyond the Lonely Knit Stitch: Reading Standard Knitting Patterns	Foster Community Center Lansing, MI See above
April 17 (Sat.) 8:00pm, $17 at Door	Habibi Dancers‘ Annual Concert	Hannah Center Auditorium 819 Abbott Road, East Lansing
May 2 (Sun.) 1:00 - 4:00pm Show continues through 5/28	Working Women Artists Group Show Opening	East Lansing Public Library 950 Abbott Road, East Lansing
May 8 (Sat.) 7:00 - 7:20pm	The Fabulous Heftones, at Banjorama (Flint Banjo Clubs)	St. John’s Parish Hall, Davison, MI (Take I-69 East of Flint to M-15/Davison, go north a few miles to Flint St., turn left, then turn left on Dayton St.)
August 19 & 20 Full Day Sessions	Polymer Clay - Thursday Novelty Yarns - Friday	MI Fiber Festival, Allegan MI http://Michiganfiberfestival.org

Oh, what a wonderful Monday I had. Altu and I went to Ann Arbor, just for a change of pace and an excuse to talk for an extended length of time. Considering we are both self-employed, we don’t get long stretches like this very often.

We met late morning and drove down, found a parking spot on Main Street and just walked around downtown in the sunny but cold and windy weather, ducking into this and that store, mostly window-shopping. Here is a picture of Altu (standing at left) in what is called the Arcade, a sort of alley with wonderful architecture that goes west from State Street near the “Diag” on campus. It is wonderful to see that this architecture has been preserved. I can not help but wonder if it was there when my Grandma Illa went to school there in the early 1920’s. I don’t know my architecture styles very well, but I am betting this is at least that old.

We got pretty cold walking around, so after discussing a dozen or so possible places to eat lunch, we decided to go to Zingerman’s Deli. It was very close to where my car was, and the food is just top-notch in all ways. An extra plus is the quality of teas and coffees at Zingerman’s. Altu loves good coffee, and she was not disappointed.

After lunch we looked around Kerrytown for a while. Kerrytown is an area that used to be a mill, I think a fabric mill, long ago. Now it is a huge set of buildings made into little shops. There are boutiques upstairs, and Hollanders, a book arts store where Susan Hensel teaches, and Kitchen Port, a large and excellent cooking store. I found a few gadgets in Kitchen port, and the people were fun to talk to there.

Of course, a long day in Ann Arbor would not be complete without a parking ticket. I had put my coins in the wrong meter, so we proceeded to the police department to pay the requisite $5. Then we drove to Plymouth Road, to the Knit A Round yarn shop.

It was good to be there again today. Both Sue and Elizabeth were there working, ladies I’d met at the Sally Melville and Lucy Neatby workshops in the last few years, in Ann Arbor and Marshall. They were so helpful to Altu while she was deciding what to get today.

Altu ended up with a ball of Crystal Palace Splash, a sort of feather-like eyelash yarn, in shades of browns and copper. She got some large needles and proceeded to cast on right there in the shop, while I was still petting all the yarns.

We got out of the knit shop just as rush hour was in full bloom. We decided to go to the closest coffee shop and drink tea and knit. I had Irish Breakfast tea, Altu had Jasmine Green, and we talked and knit and relaxed.

I wish I had a picture, but by the time I dropped Altu off at her house, she had knit maybe 14″ on a 16-stitch scarf. It looks great, I think she will really wear this beautiful thing. It’s not my color, I’m not a brown person, but she will look wonderful in it.

After I took Altu home, I took myself to Taj, a local Indian restaurant. I knit and ate my Channa Masala (chickpeas in a spicy tomato sauce with onions) and garlic nan (flat bread, freshly baked) and read my Vogue Knitting magazine and knitted more on my socks. I’m almost to the point of casting off the cuff of my toe-up afterthought heel sox, and then all I need to do is knit the heels. Whee!!!

Oh, the other picture is the yarn I bought for myself today. It’s called Crystal Palace Squiggle, colorway 9291. What an odd thing this is! It has a very thin binder, with large bits as eyelashes. it has good yardage… 100 yards for 50 grams, which means there is no core to it at all. I will have to find another yarn to knit with it (at the store there was a scarf knit with this and Eros, which made it sparkly). I envision a collar and cuffs… where I just add them to a sweater I already have, if possible. Such fun!!!

I feel so satisfied right now. My Sunday started with a good night’s sleep, and then I got to work at JoAnn with some folks I really enjoy and who I had not seen in a long time. I had some wonderful customers today, as well, and that also made the day pleasant.

I didn’t have to close, so I went home at 5:30 or so. I stopped at the corner Quality Dairy store for their excellent orange juice and a few other groceries (they carry some canned beans I can not get at the regular grocery stores). I love going to QD, I love the people who work there. They are so pleasant, in a somewhat challenging job. They make me feel special when I see them. It’s just not the same as a 7-11, it’s a neighborhood place and I enjoy it.

Then I decided to go two doors down to the little asian grocery. There used to be another asian (Vietnamese) grocery there years ago, and this one is smaller yet. I think these folks are Thai or Laotian or Hmong, but I haven’t asked yet. The last time I went there, it was their first week and they didn’t have much I was interested in getting. They didn’t even have any tea at that time.

Today, though… well, I found a bunch of things I wanted. I got some coconut milk for making pudding, and some noodles, and some toothpicks, and a good-sized baggie of fresh basil leaves for $1.99. And the most wonderful find of all: a can of white pepper from Thailand. It has a logo of a thumb’s-up sign… on the front, on the cap, and even embossed in the metal bottom of the tin. Isn’t this thing just wonderful to look at? I was so pleased that I actually use white pepper (it’s wonderful in most soups and in bean salads), so that I could get it without hesitation. The cost was merely $1.25, worth it for the decorative value alone. I’m just delighted with this find!

After I rested at home for a little bit, I went to Emil’s Italian restaurant and had a meal and did some knitting with my friend Marie. Marie and I both dance together. She works full-time for JoAnn’s… until recently she was at Lansing, and now she is training at a nearby town for a higher management position. I miss seeing her at the store on weekends, though we still see each other at Foster Center, where we dance.

We really enjoyed our meals tonight at Emils. It was sort of wonderful just being in that space there tonight. Emil’s is truly a classic, the oldest family-run restaurant in Lansing. Great from-scratch Italian food, nothing there is straight from a can out of a foodservice truck. And it’s just a great neighborhood spot. There is a little bar in the back, like a neighborhood pub, but the nonsmoking section is big enough, and far enough away, to make everyone happy. The service is much better than most places in town. This place actually has good decor, service, and food, a threesome rarely found in this city. And the prices, they are quite reasonable as well. If you live here and haven’t checked this out, please put it on your list of things to do!

Now, I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet of the house. Brian has been recording himself singing/playing songs which were written before 1923, and so he is sitting with headphones on editing his musical tracks. It’s really quiet here other than the click of two keyboards. As soon as I post this note, I’m off to laze on the couch and either knit or read about knitting, until I fall asleep. Aaaah, the life!

Well, I’ve had a wild few weeks. I’ve been nonstop dyeing, then labeling/pricing, hauling to Illinois and back, and then the required follow-ups when I got home. And of course I had to get this pattern written sooner than later, in whatever spare time I could free up.

Then all things got complicated by the springtime weather. I love the departure of snow, sleet and frost. But I have a big mildew allergy, and the rain and thaw make me miserable. Friday morning I got a headache from it. The pain was so severe it woke me at 7am, after only 4 hours of sleep. Thankfully, some minor pain relievers got me back on the road, but it was like I had a sick day on Friday. That is, a sort of sick day… while I was doing the calculations for a sock in four sizes for publication. I did it. Yippee!

Saturday I had no headache, and I did not take that for granted. Therefore, a meeting with my knitter, a dance rehearsal, work at Foster’s computer lab, and a five-hour shift at JoAnn, seemed a piece of cake, actually a lovely time. Funny how we are, isn’t it? One small setback and we start seeing the simple things as blessings, at least if we are fortunate.

And now here I am at home, alone for about an hour. Brian is playing music for a contra dance, with the Scarlet Runner String Band. I got off work, bought some groceries, then went home and now I’m just sitting in a quiet house. I’m going to knit until he gets home. Aaaah, this is the life!

Picture is my 90th pair of socks to date, afterthought heel slouch sox from Mountain Colors/Bearfoot wool and mohair. I got the yarn around December, at Yarn for Ewe.

I finished the draft of my next pattern for publication, and it went to a friend (she does professional knitting) for knitting today. I’m excited to be mostly done with it, I’m excited to not be working totally alone this time, and I am very happy with the design, as it looks on paper.

Friday night the Ten Pound Fiddle coffeehouse had a tribute concert for Bob Blackman. He has had a folk program on the air on WKAR now for 20 years. Bob also works with Brian so we know him pretty well. It was great that he was honored so publicly.

The performers were Pat Donohue and Peter Oustrushko. What a great lineup that was! The show was at LCC’s Dart Auditorium, a first for this organization. It was jam packed with all sorts of great people. I saw people from church, from knitting (Hi, Sharon P!) and from Working Women Artists, among other places. It was a grand event.

Foster Center
Well, Wednesday I had eleven knitters at Foster Center, and it almost seemed quiet. They all knew what they were doing, and just came in and knit away. Two kids finished their first wrist bands but even that was relatively low key. The coolest one was a little boy who is probably six years old, who made a bulky hunting-orange wristband with a good number of what we call “hiccups” in it. He was pleased. He is liking this knitting thing, but he just doesn’t have it down to a routine yet. WHen I ask him to show me, he does it right. He just gets distracted very easily when I’m not right there. He’ll get it soon.

Another little girl, also six, started out like this boy. Now she just comes in and knits like a crazy woman, as fast as she possibly can. Her stitches are neat now, and she is busy knitting little blankets for the kitties at the humane society. How sweet. This week she didn’t say a thing, she didn’t need me at all. How far they can come in such a short time, if they really love making stitches as I do.

Today (Thursday) I had five knitters, but it was more active by far. One girl I had not seen since summer but miraculously we still had her bag with her name on it in storage. The kids remembered seeing it and they went to fetch her the goodies. She started in as if she had never left. I was delighted.

Artful Food with Altu
After Foster Center today, I stopped by at Altu’s restaurant for a delightful meal of mild chicken and lima beans on rice, with cabbage on the side. I tell you what, this woman is an artist with food. I was so satisfied with my meal. Not only that, I got a chance to talk a little with Altu and her husband (a quiet man, like Brian… the kind you really should listen to when they talk, because they have quality to what they do say).

Altu and I are planning a day together next week. We have said for over a year that we would take a weekend and get away from it all, go to Chicago or Toronto or something. We never do it (well, we haven’t since October 2002). Thank goodness we can talk over coffee from time to time. I really value her input, on both personal and business things. It’s so important to me to have friends who are also self-employed.

So we will have at least a little more time this week… long enough for a meal or two, and the time between. I think it will be enjoyable.

A New Design for Publication
Right now, I’m focused on designing my next sock pattern, to be published in a few months. It’s sort of fun but sort of nerve-wracking as well.

This one is more detailed than most I have written thus far. I think it is looking wonderful, but I always wonder how many people will want to knit something with any complexity. Yet, something too simple that everyone is able to knit, is perhaps too boring to bother with. I guess I’ll opt for beautiful and let things fall as they will. After all, Lucy Neatby doesn’t get well-known by doing plain patterns, does she?

I don’t want to downgrade simplicity… after all, I usually knit stockinette socks, plus I bought Sally Melville’s knit stitch and purl stitch books and love them. But beauty of all sorts can have its place. We’ll see what actually emerges when I’m done with it all. Essentially, I’m not in charge of my creative impulses anyway. I’m the conduit for something that I, in essence, bring into the world. It is such an unconscious thing… the overall looks of the design, anyway. Or much of it is.

Then after the looks come to me, comes the hard part. I have this architecture problem. I need to make the pretty designs fit a certain number of stitches, for a certain number of sizes. The more fancy the design, the harder it is to make it fit. It helps to have a smaller gauge, as that gives me smaller increments to work with. The time I was working with a DK weight yarn, and I made a sock in 11 sizes… well, that combination was enough to make me pull out my hair!

Off to draw more graphs of a sock. One square at a time, my design will emerge. Pretty cool, really.

Image is a detail of a cell-phone cover I made using Turkish Sock patterns from Anna Zilboorg’s book, Fancy Feet. Appropriate, because I’m doing more Turkish-sock-inspired work in this current pattern.

All the new yarns are now up on my site at http://ColorJoy.com/forsale/. I’ve sold a few since my first post, and have marked those items as sold for the time being. I have also added a handful of new items to the pages since that post.

Thanks again for your support. I’m loving my colors, and it’s nice to know other folks do, too.

I recently joined a Freeform Crochet email list. I’m not participating much yet (although it was great that I could answer questions about Kool-Aid dyeing early on). Yeah, I don’t crochet much, but I’m good at making things up with a crochet hook when necessary (don’t ask me how to follow a pattern, though). This group is one of the most creative online groups I’ve ever met. It rivals some of the MailArt stuff I used to participate with.

On the Freeform list, I found out about this: there is a new exhibit online called A girl can NEVER have too many handbags. OK, so I disagree with the title (I’m not much of a purse grrl, have had the same black nylon bag for both knitting and purse for several years now). But my own simplicity around bag-carrying doesn’t make the exhibit any less amazing.

In this exhibit, you will see Freeform Crochet, quilting, beading, felting, intarsia knitting, a recycled sweater, handpainted fabric bags and woven bags. There are over 70 pictures. Do check it out!

Photo is me wearing a pouch I originally knit as a water bottle holder, but here I used it as a small cash purse. It’s knit from Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted and Lion Brand Fun Fur eyelash yarn. My pouch is tame, tame, tame next to the handbag site… do go look, won’t you?

OK, everyone. The ColorJoy yarn pages are up. You can find them from the yarn link at http://LynnH.com or you can go directly to the Yarn Page One by clicking right here in this paragraph. Pages one through three are updated as of right now.

There are three more yarns I have not had time to put up yet, but it’s time to go to the post office and then my knitting guild meeting. Better that you have something to peruse now, rather than waiting any longer.

I’ll check in again as soon as the last few yarns are up, but meanwhile enjoy the bulk of my work while it’s still available. Much of the Cushy ColorSport, my signature yarn, was sold this weekend. However, the lighter weight of the same yarn type, Cushy ColorSox, still offers several colorways as well (ColorSox is on Page Two, which you find by clicking the link at the bottom of Page One).

Thank you for your support and enthusiasm! You can’t know how much it means to me.

See you soon!

Well, what a weekend I have had. Friday was the long drive and then meeting folks, setting up my table, knitting a little and talking a lot. Apparently sleep is not scheduled into these sorts of things, because I didn’t get enough sleep all weekend. I had a lot of great times, and I’m not really complaining, but I was not at all realistic about the self-care part of this weekend, I guess!

I do have some yarn left that I am making web pages for, so you folks who didn’t come along can get some goodies, too. Estimated date of arrival was Monday, but now is Tuesday. Photos are all taken and edited, I just have to get the text and pricing up and we’ll be live.

I’m really tired (OK, now why am I surprised?), so I slept in this morning and then took a nap this afternoon. And now I’m tired yet again! I guess I need to remember that slumber parties are for teenagers, or something.

Anyway, the first picture (above) is the Jumers Chateau in Bloomingdale Illinois where we stayed.

The second picture is my little booth/table while it still had a lot of yarn on it. Aren’t the colors electric? I enjoyed them so much!

Following that are three pictures of the group on Saturday, I believe. Probably these photos will only be interesting to those of us who attended but you can see we were busy knitting, using a drop spindle, spinning, you name it. One person was doing needle felting as well, I think it was Sue.

Then come four pictures of our dyeing experiments using food-grade dyes in crockpots and an electric roasting pan. Several folks dyed wool roving for spinning, and a few dyed yarn. We used Kool-Aid, Wilton’s Cake frosting colorings, and Easter egg dyes. The first picture shows the “before” of some yarn that turned out just great, but I did not get pictures of it when it was done.

The second and third pictures are before and after, of some roving that was done with Easter Egg dye and sprinkled Kool Aid over the top. Didn’t it turn out beautifully?

The last dyeing pic is Sue (suespinz) showing off her yarn. It had started out a light butter yellow, and she dyed with blue and green which turned out just beautifully.

The last two pictures are of us the final day, Sunday, settled around the fireplace at one end of the lobby. You are seeing Sue, Fran, Chelsea and Lynn (Mom and daughter) in the second-to-last photo. Chelsea was very fun, our only High School/young person. They live in town so drove in both Saturday and Sunday for some fun. They got at least one drop spindle and Chelsea got this great scarf kit with eyelash and ribbon yarn, in our little gift exchange. You can’t see it very well, but she had just started that scarf the night before and was really going to town on that!

Oh, and in this picture what you see on the left is Sue teaching Fran how to do tatted lace. Sue showed me a few things about tatting when Fran was done. I’ve done just a few knots but never finished anything, and Sue was very helpful to me. I still need a book or something, I’m still confused a bit, but she was an excellent teacher.

The last picture is Michelle, Cathy R. and Karen. Michelle was one of my roommates, and is from Evanston, Illinois, a place I have been a few times (just north of Chicago). Karen was from a closer location but I don’t remember exactly where. Cathy R. lives less than a mile from my house in Lansing! We met online but have met in person a few times before this retreat.

Hi, all. I’m busy getting ready for a long day of driving (5 hours, according to Mapquest) to Bloomiefest. I’ve been labeling and pricing yarn for what seems like 24 hours. It’s not as interesting as actually making the yarn into pretty colors, but that’s part of the process. And there is something satisfying about tying little labels on skeins of yarn, for some reason.

Anyway, why don’t you go read Knitknacks, the blog by my friend Sharon P? Lately I have had almost no time to read anyone’s blog, but took a minute yesterday to read what I could of Sharon’s. I tell you what, I just love how she writes! It’s just like talking with her. She’s a woman of passion, opinion, talent, and she is just engaging to read. Please go visit her in my absence.

Oh, and definitely also visit Sarah Peasley at Handknitter. She finished her lopi Einstein jacket. And it looks WONDERFUL on her. Go Sarah!

I would love to make one but I’m so afraid it will look bad on me that I don’t dare. I think that I need to follow my gut on that, after all Sara is tall and I’m short. Seems like the people who look good in Einstein aren’t shaped like me (unless perhaps Sally Melville is… she’s small but I think she has nice square shoulders and mine are very small and rounded). Trust my gut. I will instead make the Not Your Mother’s Suit Coat… someday. After I Dye the wool I bought to make it with. The shoemaker’s children have no shoes, right? And I never knit with my own handpainted yarns unless they are for publication. Can’t sell your income, I’d say.

Anyway…
I’ll try to take photos when I’m out of town, and post them. However, there is the very real chance that I’ll be having such a good time living in the moment that I won’t post till Bloomiefest is over.

See you when I can.

In case you thought I stopped teaching kids, here’s a lovely shot of today’s group.

I had eleven of them today, one boy. Three kids are very new, I met them at JoAnn and was so impressed I asked if they would like to come to knitting. Five of this group today are homeschooled, one other lives across the street. The last two are brought by their mom just especially to knit.

It was such a great group. They all are doing so well, even the ones who started last week, that they just sat quietly and knitted most of the time. We had a few finished projects today… one girl finished her first project, a wristband. Another (my youngest) is knitting blankets for kittens at the humane society, how sweet is that?

I love my kidz. Aren’t they beautiful?

Hi, friends. I’ve received a few inquiries about my new batch of handpainted yarns. I did a big batch in October and then got distracted by the holidays and my extra obligations, so I haven’t done dyeing since this year began.

I am just now drying yarn from the last batch for this weekend. (Well, maybe I’ll do one more batch of alpaca/wool since it seems to be screaming “me too!”)

I am going to Bloomiefest on Friday early morning. I can’t imagine how I could get a web page up before then to sell what I have just completed, or I would.

However, realistically I will get home Sunday very late and I’ll spend Monday putting up a web page with the remaining yarns for sale. There will definitely be some, as I have 17 different choices yarns/colorways right now, in addition to my wool/mohair rovings for spinning and feltmaking.

So tune in late Monday and you’ll be the first to see the new offerings. Thank you for your interest!

Thanks to mamaliz, my knitting friend in Ann Arbor will have yarn to finish her sox. Thanks a bunch, Lizzy!

Isn’t this online community the best? I just love knowing you all.

Hi, all. I need some help. A friend in Ann Arbor bought a skein of my Seaside yarn a while back. She saw the mostly-stockinette sox I made with only one skein of the yarn. Since she was using smaller needles, she made her cuffs shorter to conserve on yarn. We both thought she could get a pair out of a skein that way.

Unfortunately, she used a ribbed cuff and did a beautiful textured/cabled pattern on the foot. And that design used significantly more yarn than she thought it would. So now she is about three inches from finishing a gorgeous pair of sox, and I have no yarn from that batch left so that she can finish.

I have just finished drying a batch of yarn I’m going to call “Seaside: The Sequel.” I never intended to repeat the first colorway (therefore I have no notes) but it was so popular I gave it a try. The new yarn has the same “feel” as the first, from across the room. It is a little lighter overall, with the same purple, indigo and frosted white I used in the first batch. The turquoise in the first batch was almost pale emerald, and in the new batch that was replaced by a very lovely light turquoise/aqua, a little more blue than green. The new colorway is just as beautiful, but slightly different.

(Photos: on clothesline, Seaside Dye Lot #1; in hank, Seaside: The Sequel. You really can not see how many shades there are in the purple, in particular, but you can see these are very similar.)

If there is anyone out there who has a skein of the first dyelot/colorway and is willing to swap to help out my friend, we all would be very happy. Or if you have a small ball of yarn left over from a project, good to cover about a 3″ bit of toe decreases, that would work.

If you volunteer your yet-unknitted skein of Seaside, I’ll pay shipping back. I’ll also send you a bonus small skein of something fun when I send you the replacement yarn. If you have some small leftovers to donate to the cause, I’ll pay shipping and send the fun bonus yarn, but *not* send a new skein of Seaside.

Anybody out there who can help?

Well, this week I really get to reflect on how cool my mom is. Too bad we have to be grown up to understand all this, but I’m glad we both lived long enough to have this new relationship.

Mom grew up with the challenge of some sort of learning disability, we theorize it is dyslexia though she has not been tested. Not only that, she was legally blind and did not get glasses until she was in school. She had been a premature baby and maybe her body just didn’t develop quite right but her spirit was not affected at all.

Mom has always had such a challenge spelling, that she always felt dumb. Her sister would do very well in spelling bees, yet in college sometimes she would answer a question in a test differently than she wanted to… she knew the answer but didn’t know how to spell the word, and she would automatically get marked down for her spelling so she would choose words she knew, even if they were not quite right.

So last week she took an impromptu IQ test while watching a TV show about IQ. And she came out very high on the test, very high. So finally she understands how smart she is. (Eric and I have known this a good long time, of course.) She joked that it was good that the test didn’t have any spelling words in it! Well, Einstein could not spell either… and how smart was he?

Then today mom wrote to me from Florida. She lives in Polk County where they have the largest Senior Games in the state. She and Fred participate every year. Fred is a very good swimmer and does well there, although there is a former olympic swimmer in his age group so he really can’t get a gold easily. They also do lots of dancing, and mom always participates in the 50 and 100 dashes. Not that she feels she is good at running, but to celebrate that she can run at all after surviving cancer for 7 years. Go, Mom!

So today her email said:

We took part in some more Senior Game Events. Fred and I got four golds in the waltz, polka, jitterbug and twist. We got silver in the tango and country two step. The bronze was in the fox trot and cha-cha. Fred also got a silver in the line dance. I did not take part in that. We never get a medal in the rumba and that is one of my favorite dances.

There were seven couples in our age group of 70 to 79. Fred is still able to pull me through his legs in the jitterbug. One of the judges dropped her jaw when that happened. No one in the 50’s or 60’s age group did it. Fred also got several medals in swimming. In the twist competition we were the only ones in our age group, so we got gold by default. There were a lot of really good younger dancers in the twist. We do it for fun and have a good time.

Well, I think it’s the mom who is supposed to be beaming about her kid’s accomplishments. However, today the roles are switched. Go Mom!

Wowie, there is a band in New Zeeland which put out a video where most of the images are knitted. There’s a knitted city with knitted cars and helicopter, the buildings are knitted with felt windows.

My modem is slooooooow so watching the video was less than satisfying. I played it twice and both times saw different pictures, it’s as if I didn’t get the whole thing each time. And the picture showed up as less than two inches wide on my screen, so I could not see much detail during the actual video.

However just going to the web page and looking at the blown up picture they are using as their promotional shot, is definitely worth a peek even if you have a slow connection.

Gotta love it. Sculptural knitting is something I’ve been thinking about for a while and this gives me some concrete examples. Cool!

The image here is a small cropped bit of the picture I think you will want to see in full, by clicking the link above. On their site this piece is a third larger, to boot. Do the artists the favor of seeing the whole thing, if you would. I’m sure they’d be delighted for you to visit… it is their debut album.

Wow, it is such a colorless, dreary day outside. I am sitting next to my three southern windows. I can not tell what time of day it is, because the sky is covered in white clouds from corner to corner. We are getting a touch of snow but it doesn’t seem to be accumulating today.

Yesterday morning we noticed on the way to breakfast, that there was almost no snow left on the ground. There was a tiny patch at the corner of the diner’s parking lot, but all those inches we had all winter had finally melted with all the rain in the last week. Usually our snow comes and melts, and comes again and melts again. This year it came and accumulated, and stayed for months.

Yesterday evening it snowed a little, enough to have to wipe it off the car before driving. This morning it was pretty much gone. But I don’t mind the snow as much as the lack of color.

This photo was taken out my south-side window. You are seeing the last two of five white houses in a row, then a taupe/beige house, then two more white, then a pale yellow. On our side there are at least three white houses in a row as well, including ours.

And then there is the sky! Notice that the sky nearly matches the white background of this web page, perhaps a little more gray. I did not do anything to change the color, that really is how it looks. Can you see why I am so focused on bringing color into my life? Color is not around me for about half of the year, unless I make sure I bring it in myself. And I positively wither without color.

In good news, I finished a pair of sox yesterday (turquoise Heirloom Easy-Care DK, peasant/afterthought heels with rolled cuff). I’m really close to finishing my Mountain Colors Bearfoot sox as well… just some ends to work in.

In addition, yesterday I dyed a couple dozen skeins of yarn. Today I plan to dye at least 3 dozen skeins as well, and I did 18 skeins earlier last week. I’m preparing for Bloomiefest (a knitters/fiber artists’ retreat) in Bloomington *Illinois* which is near Champaign-Urbana, this weekend. I arrive around noon on Friday, and leave Sunday night.

I’m having a table at Bloomiefest to sell these delectable yarns. I hope others like them as much as I do. I have a few special ones made of alpaca (blends and 100%) and an angora blend yarn that will be beautiful for a shawl. And of course, I’ll bring as much of my signature yarn as I can… that is, as much as I can create between now and then with just me doing the dyeing.

Anyone nearby want to come for the day perhaps? I can get you information if you need it. I’m surprised to find it is only about a 5-hour drive for me. It must be within reach of many folks.

Back to creating color. It’s too bad when my basement dyeing studio is more lit-up and colorful than my southern-facing office, but I’m making the most of it.

This morning Brian took me to the diner five blocks from our home. It used to be the Great Lakes Diner but they closed in April, and I grieved. We really loved being able to walk to breakfast once or twice a week, and the service was so friendly and good there, that we kept going back even though the food was sort of normal American fare, something we don’t eat much of.

The diner building was purchased by folks from Ann Arbor. They own the Fleetwood Diner on Main Street (the same Main Street Bob Seeger sings about in his popular song of many years back). It’s a legend. It looks like an old diner, and it is. Maybe 1940’s perhaps? Metal box with nearly no room to sit, but that is part of the charm. Open 24 hours. Love that part, 24 hours. With my schedule, that is a Very Big Deal. And the cool thing is the new place has the same hours.

So the new Fleetwood Diner in Lansing is in a very new building, only a few years old (it looks in the old style, to give it credit). A beautiful building with much more space than they have in Ann Arbor. And every seat was taken when we were there, except just a few seats at the counter. And it turned over, too… people kept coming and going. A different crowd than before, perhaps less yuppie and more working class. Suits me just fine.

And the food is different, at least some of it. The expected eggs-and-toast stuff you find at any breakfast place, of course. But then they have a bunch of Greek food, including Gyros and Moussaka and flaming cheese. And they have their famous Hippie Hash. It’s a whole bunch of lovely-looking veggies including broccoli (yum) fried with some made-in-house hash browns (infinitely better than frozen potatoes in a bag), and with a couple of eggs. You can even get tempeh with your hippie hash. Tempeh is a soy food that is cultured with something like yogurt, and it makes a sort of crumbly food that works great in chili to replace ground beef or the like.

I was encouraged by the first visit today. I’m really excited that they are 24 hours. This is really good for our neighborhood. I hope all the theatre people get the word about this place. If they do, it will create a steady stream of late eaters which is very good.

I looked like crazy on the web for a picture of this place. There was an article in the City Pulse this week about the diner, but it seems to not be online. I guess it’s too soon, they haven’t even been open a week yet. I did write a blog entry about it, when it was still Great Lakes Diner, and there is a picture there. Also I found a review of the Fleetwood Diner in Ann Arbor, written by none other than our friends in the band Steppin In It. They actually have a page reviewing diners all over Michigan, a very cool thing indeed. Check out their page for the diner reviews, and then go over to their schedule and see if you can catch them live in concert… they are great musicians, great performers and a very good time indeed.

Lansing-area folks, come on down! It’s just south of the intersection of Cedar and Mt. Hope, very easy to reach by 496 if you are out a ways, or take the Holt/Cedar exit from 96 (exit number 104 if I remember right), pass the first street which is Pennsylvania and merge right onto Cedar… it’s at least a mile or even three miles, on the right side of the road just before a stoplight.

Today there is an article in the Lansing State Journal about freecycling. They interviewed me several times about this, and came out and took pictures of Mike and I working in the computer lab at Foster. We got computers donated to the room after I posted on the Mid-Michigan Freecycle Network list that I needed some. The Foster, Swift, Collins and Smith contact person is not on Freecycle but somehow the word got to him after I posted on the list. It was a case of the energy flowing beyond its original boundaries.

The article, I hope, will encourage more people to do freecycling. It’s just a place where you can post things you have that you don’t want to put in the dumpster/landfill, and you can also claim things others post. For example, at Christmas I got the 1960’s-era fake fireplace logs for Brian’s present. I gave away my inline skates (see picture). I just claimed a microwave (more dyeing, yippee) this week that I haven’t even picked up. And then the computers at Foster Center.

I’m disappointed, though. I sent my first “interview” to the reporter in email so it would be easy to quote me properly. He then called me via phone and we had two conversations… one to verify a fact, which was good. But in the end I told him I had TWO machines running on the old system Windows 3.1 (the rest of my room was primarily running on Windows 95, old but not archaic) and somehow he put in the article that my whole room was running Windows 3.1. Aargh!

My family owned newspapers in the past. Grandpa Troldahl had one since about 1950, and my uncle Oather had one for perhaps a decade, both in small-town Minnesota. Grandpa won an award for excellence in a paper of his circulation, in the early 50s. Dad had his PhD in Journalism. I know how hard it is to get things right in print. But this particular misquote seems so big to my geeky self. To a non-geek this may seem small, but we were not quite as behind the times as his quote makes us look. Win95 is like WinXP in many ways, although clearly the new machines are probably about four years newer than the old ones. (I did write the reporter, in case you are wondering if I am talking behind his back.)

Sigh… I liked the pictures, anyway. I know Mike was pleased with the photos, as well.

(Oh, if you want to join Mid-Michigan Freecyle Network, it’s mmfn@yahoogroups.com or click the link in the first paragraph to go to its yahoogroups home page)

It makes me really appreciate Carla Kucinski who did the article on me for the NOISE, about my socknitting. She hit it straight on, did a fabulous job. I just wrote her a note to thank her again. I believe that we need to tell people when we are happy, just as much as we speak up when we are unhappy.

In the end, today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s fish wrap as they say. Nobody will remember. I just do not like the feeling of being “unheard.” I clearly said one thing and was quoted as having said something else. That just feels crummy.

OK, tomorrow I’ll surely be my normal cheerful self. Tune in tomorrow… same place, same station!

Friday I had a late dinner with my Goddaughter, Sara. We are planning a trip to visit our friend, Elizabeth, who lives in the hills of Southern Vermont. We visited her last in August of 2001, just before the towers in NYC fell. Sara does not travel well in a car, but loved Elizabeth so much that she is choosing another trip out east in spite of her queasy stomach. We did what we could last night to plan the trip so that she could have maximum comfort and resting time on the road.

We are planning the trip for somewhere around the second week in August. I’m going to have a crazy month, because the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan is the next week after we get back. I’m crazy… but that is what works best for Sara so I’m going for it. I’ll just have to do a LOT of preparation for the festival before we go. Talk about planning ahead! I think I’m learning to be more like a grownup every day. Good thing, too!

We had our dinner at the Coral Gables restaurant just outside of the East Lansing city limit. This restaurant existed before my family moved to this area in the early 1960’s. The city of East Lansing used to be “dry” (no alcohol sold) and so restaurants just outside the city which served alcohol, were booming businesses.

This restaurant sort of slowed down for a while in the 1970s but the owner did a renovation in the late 1980s if I remember right, and it is an excellent place for dinner. The service is good, a sort of rare thing in this area.

As far as food, they have a very good quality salad bar which Sara and I both really enjoy, and much of their food is made from scratch, in house. Last night we both had pasta dishes… I had spaghetti and Sara had baked spaghetti. Comfort food! Their kitchen was open till 11pm and we left at about 11:25. It’s good that Sara and I are compatible in our schedules, isn’t it?

Picture today is a block print I did in 1999, of Elizabeth’s cabin. Maybe you can see Elizabeth sitting on the front step, and her cat Mr. Bizby, at the front right with his little white bib and white toes.

The email group, If the Hat Fits, has another online exhibition of their work. There is an amazing variety of styles here, you may want to check it out.