It was a nice day here. The temperature got up to 85F around 5pm, right when I was outside pruning the climbing roses (ouch). I love heat, though being in the sun is different than the same heat heat and a porch with a roof! It was good timing, though, as we had thunderstorms later in the evening. (I hope it will clear up so I can ride my bike to Habibi practice Wednesday and computer lab on Thursday.)

I worked at Foster with the children in the computer lab for a few hours today. The person who usually works the Tuesday shift was on vacation, but the kids were pretty fine today and it went well.

Then I ran a few errands and came home for some food, until my basic knitting class at 6pm. Three of my students came back for an extra session, and one fulled/felted her project in class. The second finished all her seaming and learned how to make I-Cord for a handle before she fulls hers. The third got one of two seams done and should be find on her own. If she gets stuck, she lives a block from me and knows where I live… they all also know I’m available at Foster on Thursdays when I am in the computer lab for the adult lab session.

After class I ran over to the Mid-Michigan Knitting Guild knit-in at Sarah Peasley’s house. I don’t get to these very often, but it was great fun. Sharon P was there, and a bunch of non-bloggers as well.

It was especially great to see Evelyn there, as the last time I saw her was after her bypass surgery. She’s back living at home again and glad of it. She is quite a good gardener, but this year she is doing flowers and not food. Interesting… this is the first year I have done food. Life changes, doesn’t it?

Oh, here are some photos I have not had a chance to show yet. There is a club of Airstream travel trailer owners, a huge club many thousands of people large, which stayed in Lansing last week.

The Airstreams are such beautiful things… shiny!!! I love shiny!!! I told you that yesterday when talking about the Valiant. The club was so large, they could not fit all the people in one area. Many of them were near the Airport (photo 1). Overflow was in many places but I found them across the street from the Marshall Street Armory (photo 2). It was shiny heaven for me to drive by. The last few left yesterday. Sigh… it was fun while it lasted.

Today Mom and I drove down to Brighton to meet my Brother, Eric and his wife, Diana. It will be Eric’s birthday on the 7th, but his weekend is Monday/Tuesday so we met up today.

Mom made quite a feast for us, and we took it down in my car, some of it hot out of the oven and wrapped in an old down coat to stay warm… some of it cold and in a cooler. All of us have foods we can not eat, so it is a challenge to make a meal for us all. Mom did it with grace and style!

She even figured out how to make Eric’s favorite cake: four layers stuffed with chocolate whipped cream and drizzled chocolate glaze on the top. She found an organic chocolate cake mix with no problem ingredients, and then she substituted a few things for the eggs and milk. She found “Hip Whip” which is nondairy and non-corn syrup, and she even figured out that “Quik Syrup” has no corn syrup so we used that for our chocolate glaze. She loves us a lot, to pay this much attention to detail. I have not had a taste of a layer cake in 2.5 years, and it was a major treat! Thanks, Mom!

We had a bit of a “hiccup” trying to find the park where we were going to eat. Mom and Eric had met there once before and remembered it well. Yet we drove and drove, and found a sort of park near where they remembered it, but the park looked all different. We figure they did some renovations, as the walkways, etc, looked new. And we did not see a single picnic table there, so we moved on.

We found ourselves not too far away at the Kensington Metropark. This is a fine and beautiful outdoor space! None of us had been there before, though we drive by all the time. It is spectacular. There are bike paths, so there were many bicyclists. There is a boat ramp and a lake or two, so there were boaters. There was a golf course we passed on the way to the park. There were many picnic tables and grills ready to go… spots to sit by the water, either in the sun or the shade. It was wonderful, and we were grateful the other park didn’t work out. We plan to meet there again. It’s the perfect distance for us all, less than 45 minutes from either direction.

The first picture here today is a picture of Eric, my brother and best friend… with his artful and loving wife, Diana. Eric was widowed when he was 30 years old, and was single for over 10 years. I never understood that, he’s such a good partner and good listener. But Diana really understands what she’s got, she loves my brother well. And she is good for him. They have been married maybe 4 years this summer, if I remember right.

Diana does quilting and dollmaking and other fiber art… and also cooks and gardens, as other artforms. And no doubt several other artful endeavors I don’t know about. She made me a wonderful lap blanket by embroidering shrunken (fulled/felted) wool yard goods with some beautiful Noro Kureyon yarn, a few years ago for Christmas. I use that thing all the time, even in summer. I get cold so easily, I need wool year-round.

Eric is actually very talented at sewing, and he is extremely good at embroidery although he doesn’t do that very often. I have some pillowcases he and his first/late wife Kelly made for me one Christmas, and they are precious to me. (By the way, Kelly admitted that Eric was much better at the embroidery than she was… he is very good at detail. And he made her dress for my first wedding… ruffles and lace and the whole works. He’s good, I told you that already.)

Oh, the last two photos today are a Plymouth Valiant car that was in the parking lot at the Kensington Metropark. The license plates made me believe it was a 1964 model. When I first met Brian, he had a Valiant… not as pretty, a later model, and it was brown but it had LOTS of chrome. I think it was the last year they made the Valiant, perhaps 1978.

Brian had no idea how much that stylin’ chrome car made me understand he could be the one for me. Not everyone sees the style in semi-old things, and both of us really do, especially if it involves some chrome! He finally had to get rid of his Valiant and I cried… it never wanted to start in the rain, and then finally rust got to the suspension. But I still was sad to see it go.

The last picture here is the medallion on the very back center of the trunk of the car. Very stylish, don’t you agree?

Aaah, summer! It is Independence Day here in the USA and many of us celebrated by gathering with friends. Brian and I went to a jam session, some people we see only a few times a year. It was wonderful. These folks are singers, they do long lyrical songs that are sometimes hard to play along with if you haven’t studied that song before. But often I know the words and melody, so I just sing along and don’t bother trying to figure out what notes to play.

It was Christye’s birthday (she is here in the second jam session photo, playing upright bass). She asked me if I would dance for her, and so I did. I was bummed, I usually carry my finger cymbals in my bag. However, yesterday I took them out for the parade and they got put back in the bag with my costume. Yet Christye wanted a dance, so I taught my musician friends how to create the beat called a beledi, and they made this beat by tapping on their guitars and other creative methods of getting percussion out of a non-percussion instrument. And I danced for her, and she enjoyed it. I was honored. Next time I will come prepared!

You can see that at least two of the partygoers are serious artists with food. On the left is a fruit dessert, handmade by one woman I just met tonight and whose name I don’t remember. She said the recipe was from her German grandmother. It looked luscious. The cake was made by Alma, using a from-scratch recipe she got from her aunt, a recipe the aunt has used for decades. The center of the cake was bright red, but sort of chocolate red. Brian had some. He said it was delicious and not too sweet. I thought decorating with flowers was just a wonderful touch! Isn’t the cake/torte photo inviting?

On the way out, it was mostly dark, but I could not resist checking out Christye’s sheep. They were loudly bleating at us and I had to check them out. I took a photo in the dark twilight, and so in order for you to see them at all I had to play with PhotoShop a little. Here is my attempt at a Monet version of the sheep. They sure didn’t know what to think of me, they knew I was not bringing anything to eat! They sort of got away from the front fence but were too curious to run away entirely.

Oh, in knitting content… I am too funny! I have only one and a half afterthought heels left on my purple Reggio sox from Yarn for Ewe, and they will be done. And I have another pair for me waiting for heels, as well. And a pair for Ulyana waiting for heels. I think I see a pattern here! So of course, decreasing means paying attention and I don’t do that well in a crowd. So today I took along yet another pair, these for Brian.

I actually had barely started these one other time when we went out in public. I had one sock about 1″ of the rib knit, and had cast on the wrong number of stitches for a second sock and knit maybe 5 rows. So I ripped that out and I actually ended up with two socks where at least half of each cuff is done. These are of Regia 4fadig, Patch Antik Colors, one of the colorways that comes in one 100gm ball. I got the yarn at Heritage Spinning when I taught polymer clay there.

This yarn is absolutely gorgeous. I don’t like large balls of yarn, I prefer two 50gm balls because I knit two sox at a time and therefore I need to rewind about half a ball before I get started at all, and then I need to be sure to knit from the same direction on both sox so the stripes aren’t reversed on the second sock. But this colorway is so wonderful I went ahead and bought it. It’s two variations on sage green (medium and light) and a sort of yellower version of the lighter green. And the jacquard bands are white and dark green rather than gray. Brian wears a lot of that sort of army green, and these will be right up his alley, I predict.

Today I danced with the Habibi Dancers in the Independence Day parade (OK, so tomorrow is independence day, but today is a Saturday). I have never done a parade with the group before, and it was actually a great deal of fun. Mom was there as a spectator, with her friend Fai (who took pictures as she always does). It was fun to dance for them.

Fortunately, the possible rain did not materialize. It was sunny and a bit too warm, if the truth be known, but for me that is better than rain and cold. I spent the rest of the day drinking water to get re-hydrated, but I’m really glad I went.

There is something wonderful about hanging out with this group of women. We all practice this danceform which emphasizes the fact that we are women. In parts of the world, this type of dance was developed as a way for women to strengthen themselves for childbirth… that is, when there were no drugs or some of the other medical advantages we have these days. Strong muscles made for a better birth experience. In some cultures, your women friends would come to you when you were in labor, and dance with a hypnotic rhythm, to try and help you with your experience.

I had a hard time learning this danceform, really. I had to make friends with my hips, before I could move them with any precision. I had to make friends with each part of my body before I could isolate that bit and do the moves well.

Maybe you have seen mideastern dancers (sometimes called belly dancers, although that is probably an intentional mispronounciation of “beladi” which is a common mideastern dance rhythm) dancing with a cane or basket on their head? Or sword, or candelabra, for that matter? One reason these props are used, is to prove the skill of the dancer. Let’s face it, it is hard to balance a book on one’s head, or anything else. Add to that, a precision dance move, or two, or several dozen, going on underneath that balanced item, and it proves that her head is steady as a table.

Belly dance is not just about wiggling hips. Technically it is about controlled movement of one small part of the body at a time. You move only your shoulder, for example, and you hold every other part of you very still. The eye of the viewer will then focus on that one isolated move. This is one goal of a good dancer. We only move the parts we want you to notice. We do not move all of ourselves at once. But more than that, it is a celebration of one’s womanhood. We dress up in all sorts of glitter and color, we typically decorate ourselves to emphasize our curves, and we move as one can best do if one has a female body. In doing this, we enjoy celebrating our womanhood.

What I have found is that I have really made friends with myself, my physical body, through studying/practicing this dance. Before I studied this type of dance, I did some ballet, some modern dance, some jazz, some tap, some theatrical dance. But I never really made friends with my whole physical self. When I came to this dance, I felt that I was mostly a good brain, and some feet moving me from place to place. Now I have a comfort level with my whole body that is almost a miracle. In the Habibi Dancers we have dancers of all sizes and many ages, from teenagers to retirees. It is about learning to be comfortable in one’s skin, no matter what size or age one might be.

The first picture here is Kay/Phaedra, Stuart, and Arlyn/Mahtaab. Stuart is Arlyn’s hubby and he’s always around when we need help with about anything. He doesn’t complain about the work, he just does it. You’ve heard me talk about Kay/Phaedra’s costuming before. She’s an amazing seamstress and creative costumer. Arlyn is also a hard worker, does lots of volunteer work for the troupe, and is another excellent seamstress. Arlyn taught me a lot of the dances I first learned when I was new. She is willing to spend time helping folks.

The second picture is just a crowd shot, where we were preparing for the parade. The additional Habibi on the far right, is Marie who doesn’t seem to have a dance name yet. Marie I have mentioned and actually pictured here before. She used to be my supervisor on the cutting counter at JoAnn Fabrics. Her kids come to my knitting/computer programs at Foster Center. She even actually bought the house exactly next door to the one I used to own, one block from Foster Center. Unfortunately she bought it after I had already moved out! But we just have a lot connecting us.

My New Sock Design Comes to Life
Oh, and just a teaser here. I just turned in another sock pattern for publication in a few months. I got the sample sock back from my knitter, Wendy, today. I am just thrilled with this design! Wendy did a great job and it looks a million bucks. Here’s a tiny peek at a small part of the sock. I can’t show any more than this… I can’t scoop the publication, or I won’t be invited back. It is just a tiny peek to get you interested!

Wendy met me at Yarn for Ewe to deliver the finished sock. That was fun! Ruth was there, Marlene was there, a few other familiar customer faces were there. I got a skein of self-striping yarn to use, planning to knit a pair for myself. Then Wendy and I went to the coffee shop a few doors down from the shop, and we talked. I don’t know how long we chatted, but it seems it was at least an hour. What a fun and relaxing time I had.

Wendy doesn’t talk as much as I do… but I did ask her a few things and she did get a few words in edgewise. I did, in fact, listen to what she said. She will be teaching her Mitered Bag class again at Yarn for Ewe one of these days. She does bag classes a lot (usually felted/fulled, but the design changes from time to time), and they are very popular. I would love to take her classes, but it seems they always are on nights where I’m teaching myself, somewhere else. Boo Hoo!

Well, this grrl is very tired from dancing in a parade. I’m off to relax a little.

I never posted these photos of folks jamming at the Elderly Instruments employee picnic. We went to the picnic on the way to the family camping trip, last Sunday. Then I was without internet connection for two days, and thus the delay.

You can tell folks are having a good deal of fun!!! In the first pic, from left to right, are Brian (seated at left), a fiddler I don’t know, and Stan Werbin, Brian’s boss and the man who convinced us we ***MUST*** go to the Midwest Ukulele Festival. And he was very, very right. Love that man. Nice to think the boss is cool, isn’t it? The second shot shows a gentleman from the repair shop whose name I don’t know, then Marisol and Arnold, who are in the band Clavel which plays at Altus, Brian, and Brandon who was in the band Hot Toe Mitty until they broke up very recently.

By the way, I found out the route for the parade on Saturday (tomorrow). It starts near Washington and Hillsdale (close to the old Greyhound station and the State Journal, I think). It heads north on Washington to Allegan (the street the Michigan National Tower is on). There it turns west on Allegan for one long block to Capitol, and then heads south on Capitol to Hillsdale.

It’s a pretty small route, really. I wonder if they chose the route because of all the construction downtown. I have never done this before but I just assumed it would go down Michigan Avenue past the Lugnuts (minor league baseball) stadium. What do I know, anyway??? I sure got that wrong.

Mom and her friend Fai will be coming to the parade. I hope I see them!!!

It was as gorgeous a summer day as is possible, today. I slept in, then I worked with Foster Center kids on computers (a roomful, but not as many kids as I had the last two weeks). I had a second lab in later afternoon, intended for adults, for the most part. That lab is slower. I did spend some time loading software, but I also got a little bit of knitting done. I finished one and a half toes on the purple Reggio sox, which pleased me.

In the second lab, I had only two kids, both of them kids who come to my knitting program during the year. The first girl played computers happily. The other came specifically to show me what she had made (striped handwarmers and a couple of scarves), and to get more yarn. She’s planning an afghan in blues, greens, and gray/silver (the colors of the sea). She is figuring she’ll start that when it is cooler, but the plans are already cranking in her mind.

In the end, I gave her a ton of yarn and loaned her two of my own knitting books. I’m too funny. But she would find something gorgeous, and exclaim out loud how pretty it was. She can tell the quality stuff from the plain worsted acrylics. I had some really lovely handspun mohair she fell in love with. She has seen me spin yarn on my wheel and really appreciates the real thing. I sent it home with her. She’ll know to handwash, too, another reason it should be her yarn.

It was great to see this child again. She’s the one who made me a nosewarmer and earwarmer band, and she made me a small yellow pouch with earrings in it for the last day of knitting this year. Her mom says she knits constantly, and I believe it. The products she finishes are the proof!

After Foster, I went to visit my Goddaughter, Sara. We are having dinner together once a week for a while (tonight we ate lima beans at Altu’s), so that after dinner she can practice driving my stick shift car. She really loves my New Beetle. She is afraid of ruining the car or something, but she does a very nice job once she sheds the fear. Today was our first day driving anywhere but a parking lot. She drove around her neighborhood, which is very familiar to her. She did well. Not well enough to take her downtown yet, but she did just fine. I’m proud of her. Here’s a picture of Sara, happy in the driver’s seat!

On the way home, I stopped at the Grass Garden at MSU (corner of Mt. Hope and Farm Lane). It is such a beautiful place! The sun was setting and was pink at the horizon. I’m really glad I took the extra 10 minutes and stopped there before it was too dark to see it properly. Fortunately, PhotoShop is a good program for lightening pictures so that you can see a bit of detail even from a photo taken at dusk. The colors are not as strong as midday, but you can see in the shadows a bit. Maybe you can see a hint of the purple and yellow flowers there, mid-photo… I hope you can see it at least a little. Here is the garden, in all its July 1 glory!