Today I had 18 knitting kidz. One was new. It was a little brother of a girl who comes all the time. He was officially too young but had been begging to come along and she told me how upset he was. I told her that once we got everyone else going, he could come along and we’d see how he did.

Well, little R did just fine. He lucked out because I had very few questions from other kids. I must have spent at least 20 minutes holding his hands while we knit together, and said our little poem. They just love that poem!

He had to stop knitting whenever someone else had a question, he was not quite on automatic pilot yet, but that is typical of a 5-yr-old. I think he’ll get it, because he really wants to do it. The 5 yr old I talked about on Saturday also had a slow start and you should just see how she is doing! She has about 4″ of her summer top knitted already. Since last week. A five-year-old child! What an inspiration these kids are to me. They are so motivated!

He finished about 3″ of a wristband (five stitches on size 10 needles, very loose stitches). He took his knitting home. This could be a problem because he really wasn’t quite ready, but I couldn’t tell him no, he was sort of clutching it as a prize and ready to go home. He has a handful of older sisters to try and rescue him.

He’s left handed, but nobody said anything to me until he was already learning a rhythm. I learned my lesson with another very young one who was a leftie, that changing to left handed knitting in the middle of a lesson means they switch back and forth and make a mess. So all I did was change the hand he used to wrap the yarn with. Sort of a “Throwing” version of continental knitting. It worked for him. One part is probably harder than it should be if I had him truly knitting left handed, but I couldn’t take the chance that he’d get confused.

Brian is still working like crazy on the new album, and I’m getting sort of crazed and happy and high from the whole thing. I’m very excited about the two concerts we’ll be singing this weekend. Here’s part of what I sent in an email to friends today… if you are in the area, we’d love to have you join us….

—
The Fabulous Heftones, Brian and Lynn, would like to invite you to our upcoming performances.

We have two out-of-town shows this week! If you can’t come, but know someone in the area who may enjoy our music, please feel free to pass along the information.

– Friday, May 7
Folk Music Society of Midland, MI,
Grace A. Dow Memorial Library Auditorium 8:00 pm
(Opening for Hoolie, sea shanties and fabulous voices) -
http://www.dulcimers.com/fmsm/page4.html

– Saturday, May 8
Banjorama! (Flint Banjo Club)
St. John’s Parish Hall, 450 Dayton Street, Davison, MI -
Doors open 5:30 - Show starts 7:00 p.m. -
http://www.dulcimers.com/flintbanjoclub/

– Saturday, June 12
Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine (no cover) as members of the
Abbott Brothers band. 6:30 - 8:30pm
1312 Michigan Ave., East Lansing, MI - 517/333-6295

– Saturday, June 26
Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine as the
Fabulous Heftones. 6:308:30pm
(see above for details)

Brian and Lynn, The Fabulous Heftones
http://heftone.com/fabulous

Wowie. I’m all sentimental today. I sort of like that part of me, as long as it doesn’t take over for weeks. It’s great to see little things and really know how wonderful they are. And big things, too… I’m really appreciating my life right now.

Brian worked really hard last night and this morning, on cleaning up a couple of my songs and one of his, for the new Moon, June, Spoon CD we plan to release very, very soon. He’s just wonderful at this, editing the tracks to make them sound just right. It’s hard work, very nitpicky. Very frustrating at times.

This morning he did a bunch of work and then the program crashed and he lost some really good work. I know that did not start out his day well, but he’s always easy to get along with even on his bad days (unlike his bounce-off-the-walls-sometimes wife). I hope his work day went well to make up for it.

Today I got home just at 3pm, when the Flaming Ukulele Radio Hour starts. I wasn’t too worried, because I know he starts the show with the song “The Flaming Ukulele in the Sky.” It is a great song, but I’ve heard it before so missing it once would not be horrible. I figured I had enough time to connect before there were new songs I’d not heard yet.

I have to listen to the show as streaming audio on my computer. This means I go to a web page for the radio station, click a link, and that takes me to a place where I click another link which starts my streaming audio. Well, I just had a horrible time getting connected today. I went to wnti.org’s website to click on “listen live” and the page would NOT load. It is a three-column page and the third column, the one I needed, would not load even when I refreshed after minutes and minutes. It took three tries to get the page loaded.

Worst of all, one time when I refreshed, it said in the On The Air section at the top of the page, that they were playing Brian. He was singing “I Want a Girl” (just like the girl that married dear old dad). I guess Uke Jackson, the DJ, was on a sort of pre-Mother’s Day theme. I was so bummed to miss it. (I will be able to hear it on the replay hour, Wednesday night, so all is not lost, but it still was a disappointment.)

It took me FOREVER to get connected, and I think I missed three songs, including Brian’s! What a disappointment that was. But I love the music, no matter what is played, so I finally connected and listened to the rest of the hour.

Toward the end of the show, after playing the excellent “When I’m Cleaning Windows” by George Formby (1904-1961), Uke played “Ain’t That a Grand and Glorious Feelin.” That is the single song we burned on CD and sent to him a few weeks back. The song will be on our next CD project… the one after Moon, June, Spoon.

I tell you what, I’m really proud of that piece. It just makes you wanna smile! And my voice was just exactly as I wanted it to be, the day we recorded it. After so many months of having no voice, or almost none, it is really exciting to hear myself sound confident when singing again.

I was suitably weepy hearing myself sing on the radio. Then after our piece, Uke played a song by Geoff Muldaur, just a fabulous entertainer who has been in the business for decades. What great company we had on the air today!

After the Geoff Muldaur piece, Uke started to announce Brian’s song “Mother, I’m Wild” (also on the Mother’s Day theme). Somehow he got cut off before he started playing the song. I think he ran out of time. It was still a thrill to hear Brian’s name announced.

The song we missed hearing, is from Brian’s solo CD (of the same title) that he released about a month ago. (My man is on a serious roll, recording these days.) If you click the link above, you can download that song and all the others on that album, in their entirety. I’m very fond of the title track, and “Rose of Washington Square.” And a bunch more, of course, but I could bore you.

The Mother, I’m Wild song is just a hoot. Here’s an excerpt: “…I am drinking Coca-Cola now. On the level, I’m a little devil…. cannibals compared to me are mild… Oh, Mother, I’m wild!”

There were some very good humorous lyricists a good long while ago. Brian is very good at finding songs like that to sing, they really work well with his voice. And when people who know our music come to hear us perform, those are the songs that get requested over and over again. I’ve got the sweet voice, but he has the fun songs. Fun will win out every time!

…Anyway, I’m feeling a bit like the lyrics to “Ain’t that a Grand and Glorious Feelin’.” To quote one verse:

When you’re blessed with the wealth of good name and good health,
Ain’t that a grand and glorious feelin’?

When whatever you’ve got, you’re content with your lot,
Ain’t that a grand and glorious feelin’?

You just go your way, always nice and kind,
Learning every day,
Happiness is in your mind, and

When you’ve nothing to fear, ’cause your conscience is clear,
Ain’t that a grand and glorious feelin’?

OK, I don’t exactly feel *that* great, I am human and feel guilt sometimes weighing on my mind, but when I was listening to myself sing… and my voice sounded just the way I wanted it to sound… and I really started feeling how fine this man is who loves me… and who makes us sound so good… well, for a moment I only felt good things. And I was truly grateful for “whatever I’ve got.” Which is plenty!

I don’t know why it is, but this recording project just makes me feel more married than ever before. We have been married about 7.5 years. I can’t think of anything more joy-producing I’ve ever done, than be married with Brian.

I told you I was sentimental today…

It has been not much warmer than freezing for a few days. In fact, last night I dreamed that we got snow that covered the ground. The good news is that today it is actually sunny and warmer. Yesterday morning it was 40F and today it is 54F, a significant change. I’m grateful.

These flowers were at the bank a few days back. It’s the same flower bed where I took photos of purple crocus early on. It is located in a protected area on the west side of the building, and it is clearly a very happy garden.

I went to my mother’s house yesterday and her strawberry plants are blooming! You can see the little white flowers at the left of this photo. In the back right corner, you can see her rhubarb plants coming up for the year. (They look like the pesky weed burdock/cockleburr, but they are not the same at all.)

Rhubarb is a regional treat, not many outside the midwest have tried it. The plant has large stems that are green with some pink, that are very tart but edible (the leaves are poisonous). The stems are cut up much like a large stalk of celery (without the stringiness) and then cooked as if it were a fruit, with lots of sugar to counteract the tartness. It cooks into a soft texture, very satisfying. The flavor is a little like cranberry or lingonberry, but perhaps a bit more tart. We really love it. Rhubarb tends to be the first harvest of the year, and we usually have rhubarb pie for Brian’s birthday on May 31.

Sometimes people make strawberry-rhubarb pies, probably because both plants produce fruit at the same time. I don’t like the texture of cooked strawberries myself, so I don’t care for that. My mother makes a wonderful rhubarb crisp which features a bit of cinnamon for flavor, and a crumbly oatmeal crust on top and bottom. I like that even more than a traditional pie. Yum! Brian and I have a small batch of rhubarb growing in our yard, and I’ll definitely have to make some in a few weeks.

Oh, Last night I bound off my new ColorJoy stole. I may bind it off again, though. No matter how carefully I try to work, I can’t seem to bind off loosely! It is a little too pulled together at the top edge. You want it a little firm, so it won’t stretch out lengthwise and look like a huge scarf… but this one pulls up on the corners when draped around the shoulders. It is not a big deal to redo, but my hands are really worn out from working with larger needles, and the arthritis in my finger is really not happy. I’m going to let that wait for a few days before I try again.

Just the same, it’s pretty exciting to have the stole in a form where I can try it on and look at the completed creation! I like this part of knitting. I really love finishing things. It is no surprise I choose smaller projects than others might. After all, my last sweater took a year to complete! I can’t handle that very often.

My other knitting project is a pair of top-down, afterthought-heel sox in Heirloom Easy-Care DK washable yarn (this is my third pair from this yarn). It’s a sort of pale raspberry color (same color as my wristwarmers from a few days ago). I am doing these on needles that are a bit too small for the yarn but they will wear like iron. They have been my on-the-go knitting for a while now.

I keep breaking needles with this project, though. With the Brittany birch needles, they were shorter and I only typically only broke them when I was actively knitting (usually during a K2Tog maneuver, since I knit so tightly). However, I bought some bamboo needles to try those for the smaller sizes (zero and 1), and they are longer. I think the birch are 5″ and the bamboo are 6 or 7″ long. Well, that extra length is a drag, because they get caught in everything when I carry them along in my bag. They poke through the sides of my bag and catch on things (including my skin). They break when I’m just carrying them. They don’t snap in half like the birch, they just sort of fold in half. The other day I was knitting on them at a restaurant. I put them in my bag, I thought carefully, and by the time I was in the car two of the needles had folded. I couldn’t knit on the way home.

I really don’t like the feel of metal needles, especially because the give of the wood or bamboo is good for the arthritis in my fingers (I’m only 45, but that’s life). But what am I to do? I take a project on the road and then I can’t knit because the needles are not in working order. Ugh. I do fine with larger sizes, but zero and 1 are a real bear (that’s 2.0mm and 2.25mm for non-US readers), and I’m using them more and more these days. I guess I really need to find some Pony Pearls and try those. They are longer than the birch, but if they don’t fold in half like the bamboo I might like them fine. You know, I have spent a fortune on birch needles and love them. I hate to spend a second fortune on another brand. I guess I’m only talking a few sizes here, anyway, but it’s such a disappointment.

The sox are coming right along, anyway. I’m just ready to decrease for the toes, then I’ll do the heels last. I may need to set these aside, though, because our guild is having a sock swap in two weeks and I haven’t started the pair for my swap partner yet. That’s life, and I’ll finish fine, but I can’t put those off much longer if sox tend to take me about 10-14 days, can I?

Well, I pushed myself for a while on Friday night trying to finish a ColorJoy stole I’d started in January. Then I realized… I had one already done that I had not intended for myself, so I’d not worn it. Of course, I’m always most in love with the current project, but the finished one is lovely, and it had the great advantage of being finished! So I took my turquoise summery stole. I took the polymer vase, and the two single framed sox, plus the block print of the sox.

I was not part of the team which hung the show, but they said it pretty much hung itself. There were three cases, two of them very large wall cases, and one standing case. One case had jewel tones, especially purples and turquoises. This one was where they placed my vase and my turquoise stole.

Another case held more earthy tones including red, orange, yellow and brown. And the standing case became what they called “The Sock Shrine.” They put all three of my sock-focused pieces in there, and then Jane Reiter brought a bunch of yarn in, which they artfully arranged on the floor of the case. I had a lot of good feedback on the pieces, it was wonderful.

Brian and I played music, as The Fabulous Heftones, for the opening reception. It was great fun, and just about perfect for that size room and that crowd. We really enjoyed it. The librarian who was sort of in charge of making sure our group was happy, told me she thought that the crowd should have been quieter so she could hear us! I told her it was our job to just decorate and make the event more festive, we weren’t really having a concert. We did, though, have a bench and a few chairs near where we were singing, and most of the time we were singing, there were folks sitting there just to hear us. It was very pleasant.

What a great group these women are! If anyone out there reading this is a creative person within driving distance of Lansing, please consider joining us. We meet at Bare Bone Studios in Old town (Turner street not far from where it ends at North Grand River), at 6pm on the 2nd Sunday of the month. It’s a multi-media group, where we spend most of our meetings teaching one another new media. The next two months we will be making small clay masks (they can be pins or purely artful) led by Gail B, a new member who is an art teacher in Brighton but who lives in the Lansing area.

Here is a photo of my polymer clay vase (it’s title is Dream), and a photo of me with Eva, one of the two youngest members of Working Women Artists. She is the Eva of “Eva’s Socks” fame. Her mom, and her aunt, and both of her grandmothers are also in the guild. It all started when her mom, Marian, joined. Marian is very good at getting other people enthusiastic about things that interest her. I’m grateful to know all the women in the family, they are my family now… family of choice… as well.

Wowie, did I have a wonderful surprise Saturday! It really made my long day just fly by!

I teach kids to knit on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Saturdays I sometimes teach adults computer skills, which I did this week from 9am - 1pm. Then I have a lab open 2-4pm (sometimes Mike works Saturdays, but it’s really my shift). After that I did my one shift this week at JoAnn Fabrics, from 4:30 till 10pm. Long, right? And after only sleeping 4.5 hours (yes, I know that is not smart but I did it) because I stayed up getting ready for the Working Women Artists group show, I should have been wiped out.

But at the end of my computer lab, two of my knitting girls and their mother came in to say hi. They bore many gifts as well, and greeted me with “Happy May Day!”

When I was a child my mother told me that on May Day you could gather flowers (from your own garden) and put them on someone’s step, and then ring the bell and run. When they opened the door they would have the gift of flowers but not know who they were from. Sort of a “random act of kindness” if you will. (She may correct me, but I believe that is the story I heard, and I am pretty sure she was the one who told it to me.)

Once we went to my 2nd grade teacher’s house down the block, and put a few tulips out, but when she came to the door she didn’t see the flowers. We rang twice with no luck. The third time, we put the flowers in the little decorating bit on her screen door (the kind that would hold the initial of your family’s last name), and she did see the flowers then. It was pretty disappointing to us, to have to do it three times, and we never did it again.

The Scandinavian society in Lansing has a maypole each year, if I remember correctly. Mom used to go, when she was in Michigan this time of year. I think my brother has gone to maypole things in Ann Arbor as well. I’ve never gone to one. But it seems that an average American doesn’t really celebrate the spring much, and it’s too bad. I wonder why Hallmark hasn’t made this a big deal? There are so many made-up holidays, made up by the card and flower and candy companies (there was no sweetest day in the mid-1970’s, now it’s considered inviolable… and we celebrated Grandma on mother’s day, not grandparent’s day… and so on). You would think May Day would be much more popular than it is, considering how many of us are so tired of cold weather by now.

So… the girls brought me a paper cone that they made with white paper they had decorated with bingo markers, making flowers (really cute). They put ribbon coming out of the bottom point, and a sort of long handle coming up at the top, about the length of a shoulder bag. Inside the cone was a bouquet of spring flowers (plus three small white carnations), a pin made for me from a pin-on message-button, covered with white sticker paper and hand-colored with a flower image, an origami fish on a thread to hang up, some hard candies, and a handwoven potholder in neon green, pink and white. Wowie!!! And a handmade card.

The youngest girl is five years old, if I remember properly. She had a challenge at first, controlling the knitting needles, but she really wanted to do this. We finally found her some longer wooden needles, about size 9, that wouldn’t fall on the floor when she worked. I was very lucky that the second day they came, they were the only two kidz I had, and I spent maybe a half an hour just with this little one, holding her hands and saying the knitting poem to help her get it.

Her first few pieces had many “hiccups.” However, she was thrilled to be learning this magical thing and was not deterred. I was really worried I would not have enough time to spend with her (there can be over 20 kids at knitting time and many of them need a good deal of help from me), because I could tell she really wanted to do this.

It just turned out that until her hands had the movements memorized, she would get distracted and forget where she was in the stitchmaking process. She just needed a lot of practice, and since Mom really supports this, she practiced at home. She is an example of practice makes perfect… or at least, nearly perfect!

Now she knits all the time, she really goes quickly… faster than a lot of folks I know. She particularly likes knitting little blankets for the kittens at the humane society. (Notice she is wearing a big-cat printed skirt in this picture, I wonder if that is related to her love for kittens?)

This week she said she wanted to start knitting a top. Fortunately, she always uses the same type of yarn and the same needles, so we could get a gauge from a previous piece. We (her mother and I) are going to have her knit two squares for front and back, and then some thinner rectangular pieces (like the wristband she started with) for straps, then we will sew it all together. She is using some apricot-colored yarn that just came in from one of you folks here who just sent needles. I am very excited to see this come about. She knits enough to make it happen. Can you imagine? A 5-year-old knitting her own top? I’m so excited!!! I really think she’ll finish it. I knitted only scarves for 20 years (and I started in 5th grade) so that really impresses me.

The older girl is also very quiet and focused on her knitting when she comes in. She gets a lot of knitting done, sometimes without a word. She has typically made larger pieces than her sister, so they take longer. Although the girls don’t talk to me much during the session, I do make sure they have enough yarn to make it through the next week until I see them again. They just keep on knitting!!!

Have I mentioned how much I love all of my knitting kidz? I can’t really explain why this is… I only see most of them an hour a week, if that. But what would my life be like without them??? I will not work with them this summer, and I’m starting to grieve already. Just look at my girls, aren’t they beautiful???

Sunday is the opening gala for the first Working Women Artists group show in a few years. We are having our show at the East Lansing Public Library, a lovely environment for artwork. The building is used a lot, and so our work will get many visitors. I’m happy about this show.

We can submit up to 5 pieces to be hung for the show. We don’t know how many pieces we’ll have to hang, and so we may not actually have all our submitted pieces shown (depending on the space available and size of pieces submitted), but I have prepared four and am mostly through a fifth, we’ll see if I can finish it by bedtime.

I’m submitting two single socks, in shadow box frames. One is called Turkish Zig, and one is called Eva’s Sock. Both are knit from Regia wool/nylon sockyarn… two colors (one solid, one multi) in the first sock and four colors for the second.

I’m also submitting a blockprint I made from a photograph I took. The photo was Brian’s feet reclining against a wall, wearing a pair of sox I knit for him out of Dale Freestyle worsted-weight washable wool yarn. I made the print for him one year, I think for his birthday if I remember right. It usually hangs in his office at work but he’s loaning it back to me for this show.

My fourth piece is a polymer clay vessel. It’s actually a glass base framework, covered with polymer clay motifs in three colors and two textures.

I’m hoping to finish my mostly-brushed-mohair ColorJoy stole that I started when I had my pilot class with Sharon P., Lili, Marlene C., and Emily. They all finished their projects and at least one of them has started on another. I know that Sharon is collecting yarns for a silver-gray one. Emily made a gorgeous one in colors not good on her personally, so I think she started right in on a second one for herself but I haven’t seen her recently so I don’t know for sure.

Mine has a primary yarn of a three-strand yarn by Ironstone, that I got at Yarn for Ewe. It’s cobalt blue brushed mohair (but really it is cobalt, plum and teal), a shiny/metallic strand and a long eyelash. That is the primary yarn of six that I’m alternating, and the others are mostly turquoise or fuschia (surprise).

This thing I’m making is such a beautiful fabric, a beautiful experience of combining five things which become much more than the component parts. I’m just delighted. Sometimes art can be magic, and with this piece I think I’ve hit that place. If I finish the piece, it will be the only one I will have there for sale. I almost never sell my hand knitted pieces, you just can not get your labor paid back properly. But this piece is as beautiful as any woven piece, and weavers are not afraid to price things properly. If I finish, I’ll price the piece so that if it leaves my life, I will not grieve.

If I don’t finish that, I can still do the show. I have other things I can submit. I would probably choose to show a polymer clay kazoo complete with matching silk bag (it has little polymer beads that match the kazoo). That was a Christmas Gift to Brian a number of years ago. It’s lovely. So we’ll see what we’ll see. I’m sort of impressed that I was ready with four pieces before 11pm the day before turning things in. I usually run myself ragged before a deadline, even when only one piece is due.

Oh, The Fabulous Heftones (Brian and I) will entertain for part of the opening gala. The opening is at the library, 1:30 to 4pm. Brian has a morning performance with the Scarlet Runner String Band (at Woldumar Nature Center, for their annual pancake dinner). We will perform when he can get to the Library after that. You might just hear a song or two from our upcoming CD if you are there.

Photographs are: Turkish Zig, Eva’s Sock, Pied Piper Socks, Blockprint of Pied Piper Socks.