Packing clothes is relatively easy… but what yarn/needles do I pack? I have too many choices… but this is a high-class problem.

I’ve been emotional all day. I did not realize until now, how much this particualr performance meant to me. It is a major hassle (and expense) to go to NYC and find a place to stay, parking, clothes that are just right for stage, plan food and knitting, and make plans to be away from my normal work routine (what I do does not allow for a substitute teacher).

Right now I have to say that I am OK with the inconveniences. Singing in New York? That was my childhood dream. I’m living my dream. How cool is that?

I’m so glad my dear friend April (and her family) is literally next door. I know the home front is well covered while we flit to a near-fantasy gig. Well, wearing formalwear for hours on end, three days in a row, is not my idea of fun, but all the rest is great by me.

I’ll write here when I can get an Internet connection, but I may not be as dependable as usual.

Uke Jackson (ukulele player, DJ, and organizer of NY Ukefest) writes:

Over a year’s planning, and now it’s here www.nyukefest.com

The posters are up. The theaters are ready. We we chosen by The New Yorker magazine as one of the top 5 events of the week, on their Going On About Town page! I hope to see you there.

Aloha!

uke jackson

Brian and I (as The Fabulous Heftones) will be playing the Vaudeville Review, four sets on Friday and four on Saturday (noon-5 is the timeframe). We also will be hosting the Open Mic on Sunday night and will be on the main stage Sunday night. (Open Mic and main stage overlap a bit so we will be running between stages to do this. They have arranged a sub emcee at Open Mic while we’re singing the main concert set. That’s show biz!)

The Sunday Night Main Stage Concert is available as a separate ticket. The other events we will be playing require a Ukefest all-weekend pass. If you follow the ukefest link above, they link to a ticket-selling site if you are interested.

My mom and Fred are coming. Brian’s sister Jennifer is coming with a beau and a friend from Long Island. I hope to connect with a few New York friends when I’m there although this is becoming more and more difficult to work out. There will be no time for any yarn shops but hopefully at least a coffee shop/teahouse will be in my weekend.

We hope to sell at least a few CDs, and I have at least two Hershberger Art Kazoos to sell. I hope to make at least one more but time is running short…

Excitement!!! We leave tomorrow. Can I finish everything on my to-do list before I go??? Cross fingers for me.

I usually have Tuesdays off, at least during the day. Today I started with a gift massage from my friend Ulyana who took pity on me. I called her to find out any stretches that would help a crick in the neck and she gave me a short but focused neck massage. Early. I didn’t mind at all.

Then it was car repair time and a million other errands to prepare for New York Ukefest. I love my repair shop (yes I said that) and they did a great job. Brakes are costly but that’s not their fault, they would be costly anywhere. These people are just plain good, honest folk and they deserve my hard-earned dollars if anyone does. The shop is owned by a woman, Betty. I heard about her through two women I used to work with at Foster Community Center. I used to go all over town for this or that repair, but now I’m loyal. They are great.

Anyway then my First-Time Toe-Up class. Three great folks in that class, and they did great. Loved it, as usual.

Then home for dinner (take out from Altu’s restaurant) and music rehearsal. And now the plan is to make a few kazoos to take to NYC to sell at the same table with our CD’s. It’s past 11, but this is not late yet for me. We’ll see if I get any made once I get away from this computer. I did make a promise to Mysterious John of Shorty Long, that I’d bring him a Hershberger Art Kazoo. So we’ll see if I get on a roll or not, after John’s very special instrument is finished.

Photo: Kazoo I made a long time ago. The digital version of the photo is dated 2003, but I’m not sure if maybe it’s older than that.

After much of a week focused on dance, now I’m back in my regular work for a few days before we do another much of a week on music. I do love my regular work. This Monday was a good day.

Monday is Haslett Community Ed. day, where I teach folks (mostly retirees) how to use computers (my only remaining computer work, really… though for about a decade I supported myself teaching computer seminars and consulting/programming/repairing). It’s really fun work, and they really appreciate me. I will not see them next week because I’ll be on my way back from New York, and so I got many hugs and good wishes as folks left. What a great life I lead!!!

Tuesday I get my brakes fixed (ugh). The car has 109,000 miles (and has been paid off for about 2 years) and these are the first replacement brakes. I figure I’m doing well. It’s just a hassle, but necessary before a trip. I hope to visit with my friend Ulyana while I’m waiting for the brakes to get fixed. That would make the experience downright pleasant!

Then Tuesday night I have First-Time Toe-Up sock class at Threadbear. I had 3 people signed up a day or two ago, so the class is definitely a “go” but there is room for more if anyone wants to join us last minute. Just bring all the double-pointed needles you have and I’ll help pick yarn in class.

Wednesday I just work for 2 hours, one a private knitting lesson and one the CityKidz Knit! program. Then I’m home to pack for New York! Woohoo! New York!

I love love love cities! Toronto was my first city. My friend Jarrettia says I’m a city collector and that really is true. I’m a subway collector in particular. I insisted on riding the subway in Cairo, for example, just to say I had done it. Not because I needed it… we had a wonderful driver. But he dutifully took us there and we rode two or three stops then came back. It made me happy (the Cairo Subway is extremely nice, for the record).

And I spent my entire childhood, singing into the mirror, practicing for the day when I would be grown up and singing on stage to an audience. And that is what I will be doing this weekend.

It’s truly a life’s dream come true, this small but satisfying singing career. We’re not any kind of famous, unless you are obsessed with currently performing ukulele acts. But I’m a very good entertainer (and my act is complete with Brian). I am fortunate enough to have audiences on a somewhat regular basis. What could make me happier than that? It’s as good as it gets.

Sleep… I need sleep…

Photo: My friend Lisa took this photo of me with my bug (1998 New Beetle, gasoline with manual transmission, named Joy) when I’d only had her maybe 3 months. I got her 1 year old. I still adore this car, it still looks and acts like a new vehicle. Lucky me.

I took a lot of photos on Saturday during the show. I did not see all the dance numbers, but those I did see I photographed. My camera is neither good with moving subjects nor low-light situations, but considering those limitations I think I did OK. Here I offer you a peek from the backstage perspective.

The first photo is the only one I have of me. My friend Sally took the shot while I was dancing… just as my camera was giving up from lack of battery power and a full memory card. Thank goodness for PhotoShop, where I was able to lighten it enough for you to see actual dancers. I’m the dancer second from left, kneeling with a turquoise ponytail holder.

My dance was a candle dance, where we held brandy snifters with lit candles in them, and danced most of the dance with those as props. It was a lovely choreography and we performed it as well as we had ever done it in rehearsal. Since we were the last dance by our troupe (the last dance in the show was by the star we brought in to teach us), we were pleased to do such a good job in the actual show. Yay!

There are a lot of photos here, I hope I’ve made them small enough to load quickly but not so small that you can not see what is going on. For the record, the only photo here that was cropped at all is the first one. All the others are exactly the same view I had when I was taking the shot.

I’m sorry to say that somehow I do not have an official program so I do not know the names of the guest troupes that I show here. I will not see any Habibis for a week and a half because of my New York Trip so I will do my best to describe what I do remember…

After the candle dance photo you will see photos of two cabaret-style dances by the Habibi Dancers (my troupe, which sponsored this event/concert). Then at right you will see a photo of three of the featured student dancers, taught by our troupe leader, Yasmina Amal. My friend, Debra, is at far right in the front row, in dark red. I’ve known Debra over ten years now, we used to work together at Black Child and Family Institute. Sort of “in a previous life,” as they say. For the record, the crowd really liked this performance. They clapped along with the music during the dance. I know that made the dancers feel just great!

Following that you see the Middle Eastern Dance Ensemble (Director, Aida Al-Adawi, based not too far from Detroit). They did a traditional Saudi dance in oversized gowns called thobes (for short, they have a longer name). The dance shows off the pretty clothing and hair and jewelry of the dancers.

Next is a troupe in an Indian tradition, based near Lansing. I do not know much about this dance tradition, but I recall that it has a spiritual basis. They did a wonderful job, I loved it. (Most of the dancers were children, but they had great presence on stage and Brian found himself surprised to see their small sizes/ages when he saw them in the lobby after they danced.) Their costumes were incredible, too!

Next are two photos of a veil dance by Habibi Dancers, followed by one photo at left of a newly-formed troupe in Chicago.

Here (at right) you see the most talked-about number in the show. It would be none other than the snake charmer dance… four snakes, five dancers (one is the charmer, the others dance with snakes around their torsos/arms or loosely around the neck).

This kind of snake sees a human as a sort of tree to climb, so the dancers are in no sort of mortal risk, although any live animal is a wild card on stage as you can imagine. It went well this year. Better than could be expected, really. Notice the shadow of one of the snakes, center front in the photo.

Following the snakes would be two photos of a fan dance. There were three kinds of fans, it was a big job to put together this choreography but with a team they did just a wonderful job. It was great to watch, very eyecatching. We have never done a fan dance before so that was a nice new treat.

This shot at left is Kazna Khalil. She is a member of the Habibi Dancers but she has made a living as a dancer in Chicago for a few years now. She performed a dance in a Turkish rhythm, very difficult. She really does an amazing job playing finger cymbals while wowing the crowd with her energy. The crowd really loved her performance!

The last photo is a guest troupe dancing a traditional hula (not the kind we see most done for tourists, an older style as I recall.) I totally loved this! Not only that, it made a nice transition from dance this week to Ukulele music next week!

Saturday night we danced and danced and danced. All day was a workshop and at night was the Habibi Dancers’ annual show. We had a great time, the show really fell together very well, the dancers had a great time and so did the audience. You can not ask for a better show day than that.

Sunday we have a shorter dance workshop (Persian dance). This means I will be going to bed earlier than usual so I can get there on time.

And the minute that dance workshop is out, I start focusing on New York Ukefest. WooHoo! Next Sunday we (Brian and I, as The Fabulous Heftones) are on the main stage, and we have several smaller performances on Fri/Sat as well. It should be great fun.

Friday Habibi Dancers had dress rehearsal. Saturday night is the real thing (read the entry for April 20 for details). Here are some preview photos for you.

First two dancers from the snake dance (there are four dancers with snakes, and a “snake charmer/sorceress” in the dance). Yes, live snakes. Who can and do whatever they want while the dancer tries to make them behave. Not to worry… they think a person is a tree, not food, but they like to try to hide under vests or climb up stage props/sets. Total wild cards.

The dancers who dance with snakes tend to be some of the best in the troupe (though there are some mighty fine dancers who say no, thank you to this idea). Worth a peek right there!

The other photo is April, right center in hot pink, wearing the vest/jacket I made her last night into the wee hours. It fits, it’s not her favorite thing but it looks fine from a distance as you can see. And I’m really glad I did the work, it would have taken her so long to do and it was even a hassle for me because the fabric was so difficult. The pattern was not too bad, but I had to make a few alterations and then deal with the super-stretch fabric.

For those who sew, it’s a crushed velvet with two-way stretch, and a grain. The grain meant it kept scooting one way and not wanting to go back to where it belonged. The stretch meant it did not want to be edge-stitched without stretching out a lot. The pattern called for a lining and so I cut apart an old turtleneck in 100% cotton, which I’d retired because of frayed edges. Cotton is at least less stretchy than the velvet.

For the record, April and Marie made April’s skirt Friday after I did my part. April’s so pretty here in her pink, dancing with Marie in orange. Don’t they look great?

I start a new First-Time Toe-Up Socks class at Threadbear this Tuesday night. Here’s what Rob said about it in his weekly newsletter:

1) First-Time Toe-Up Socks with LynnH–Tuesday nights 5:30-9 on April 25, May 2, and May 9. Make a pair of custom-fit socks that require no gauge swatch, and can be made from any weight of yarn from fingering to bulky. Lynn’s pattern has 13 photos to walk you through when you need it outside of class, as well. $30 plus materials (dpns, pattern, and any weight of yarn, tho Lynn recommends chunky/bulky yarn for quick success)

(Actually, the class will last only 2 hours for the first and last sessions, and the second session is better when we have 2.5 hours. So we will go 5:30-7:30 all but the middle session which may go from 5:30-8:00.)

It is a great class, I’ve taught it a lot. I’ve helped people make socks with this pattern, when they were frustrated by other patterns. Once you make the foot (out of any size yarn, and any shoe size) you can make any cuff you desire. A lot of folks make their first pair out of bulky yarn (you can see stitches easily and the knitting goes faster) and then make a rolled cuff as sort of slipper-footies.

But then again, some who are already very comfy with socks and are just taking this as a new “flavor” of socknitting, sometimes work with thinner yarn. Sometimes they will make a ribbed cuff or other decorative stitch pattern.

Why mention this class here? When so many of you reading this don’t live within driving distance? Well, what seems to always happen is that I offer a class, and it starts (or there are not enough students to make it a “go”), then the next week or two it seems everyone in the the Lansing-Knitting-World asks me when I’m starting that very class next. And it’s too late for them to sign on at that point. So we wait another term, and so it goes.

So… local knit buds, don’t say I didn’t let you know!

Photos? Three First-Time Toe-Up socks I knit for myself. At left, eggplant/purple Bingo washable merino, bulky yarn… and fingering weight wool/nylon Opal Handpaint sockyarn, plus slipper footies at right, knit of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted yarn.

Yarns acquired from Threadbear Fiberarts (the Opal was a lovely welcome-home gift from Rob when I returned from Africa just over a year ago).

For those who don’t read here often, I’m in a middle-eastern dance troupe called Habibi Dancers. We have our annual concert *this* Saturday at the Hannah Center in East Lansing. We have our dress rehearsal tomorrow/Friday night.

For anyone who is interested in attending, here is the schedule:
Evening concert
Doors 7:30 PM
Concert 8:00 PM
East Lansing Hannah Community Center
Albert A. White Performing Arts Theater
819 Abbott Rd., East Lansing, MI 48823

I asked to only be put into one dance this year. I just get so crazed trying to make all the night rehearsals between teaching classes, and trying to remember dances when I don’t really have enough rehearsal time to do more than one dance justice. I’m really enjoying this season better than ever… after years of 2 or 3 dances to remember.

Each dance we are in requires a special costume. Often we make new costumes for this show. This year I lucked out, and I got to borrow part of my costume. The other part my friend Marie is making (she’s making five costumes that match, and I promise I’m telling her how wonderful she is every time I can). This is the first year I have not had some serious sewing to do.

So my friend April is in two dances. And she has a fulltime job at a hospital, and a two-year-old toddler who is very insistant on Mommy’s attention when Mommy is home. Add to that, April has done quite a bit of altering costumes that were already made, but not too much with sewing from patterns, from scratch.

I don’t sew much any more. In fact, I have only taken out my sewing machine for dance costumes, in the last ten years or so (I actually own three machines, from my “previous life”).

But once upon a time (before Brian, polymer clay and my current knitting obsession), my primary creative outlet was sewing. And some things you have done a lot in the past you can remember easily, like riding a bicycle after years of not doing it.

I decided to help out. I went to April’s house (across the street) last night and helped her cut out part of her skirt. Tonight I went back over there, got the pattern (which needed altering, something I was never experienced at doing), altered and cut out the pattern.

Now I’m off to un-bury a sewing machine which literally is hiding on an old typing table in the corner of an attic room. And sew a little bolero jacket for my tiny friend. ‘Cuz it’s easier to sew for her than babysit, if I want to be helpful. Her child is wonderful and loves me, but she really likes being with Mommy more than Lynn. And this is as it should be. Besides, I can sew faster than April can, so it will be done sooner this way.

Off to make a lovely hot pink crushed velvet jacket.

My friend Susan Luks is an amazing artist. She makes beautiful garments using so many techniques I don’t know how to describe her work.

Susan really makes fabric, out of other fabrics. Then she makes wearables out of that fabric. It’s something like quilting, but she’s not really a quilter in any traditional sense. She works in texture and color. She is a woman of talent who lives her talent.

I’ve known Susan since the 1960s, her older sister was in my 3rd grade class. We keep running into one another… and this is a very good thing!

Priscilla has known her since she and Susan were college-aged, anyway. Priscilla reads this weblog, I met her at Rae’s one day when she recognized me.

Priscilla writes:

Did you know that Susan will be a vendor at the Kaleidoscope conference on 4/21 at the Kellogg Center? She’ll be showing (and selling, I hope) her fabric creations. I think the vendors will be set up in the lobby.

Even people like us (you know, people off the street) can stop by to see the vendors.
P.S. Susan thinks the vending portion of the Kaleidoscope conference will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For the record, Kellogg Center is on Harrison Rd., near Michigan Avenue, in East Lansing at the edge of the MSU campus. Thanks for the lead, Priscilla!

Photos: Susan wearing one of her creations, left. Two other creations, right.

(Prepare to problem solve, friends. Ready to put your thinking caps on? I clearly am not experienced enough to solve this mystery myself. Or maybe it’s just I’m too tired right now, who knows?)

Now what? I have a lovely spinning wheel with huge bobbins. I have two bobbins full of one-ply lumpy-bumpy goodness that I intend to ply together with one another. And then I have two bobbins half-full of very skinny single-ply goodness that I never probably will finish spinning.

Why? I tried to make myself spin sockyarn. Twice. And I can do it, but it honestly bores me to tears and I stop halfway, long before I can knit anything with it. Ugh.

So what shall I do? One of the abandoned projects is some wonderful 100% hot-purple mohair I bought two August’s ago, at Allegan/Michigan Fiber Festival. Gorgeous. The other one is green/blue superwash bought for me by a student. Again, really pretty but I’m not finishing it, at least not the way I started.

Too bad that they probably are not so good to be plied together. If I had just one empty bobbin I could then ply the green/blue with the purple on it, freeing up the two now half-occupied so that I can ply together the yarns I really think will be nice plied together. That I made to ply together. That I need two bobbins to complete the plying. Or one bobbin filled twice, anyway.

I do have three tools that I could use to make this work. I have a skeinwinder, a swift, and a ballwinder. I’m thinking maybe wind from the bobbin to the skeinwinder? And just make the finished projects into single-ply skeins (two-yard hanks)?

I don’t spin enough. Does anyone know something obvious that I don’t know? What is the best way to proceed?

My email is Lynn AT ColorJoy DOT com if you feel like giving input.

Photos: 1) The first of the two Bonkers’ Fiber (super-soft handpainted superwash wool) bobbins… in many shades of berry. 2) Packets of three different colorways (purple, turquoise and green) of the same fiber, waiting to be spun up into the second bobbin full. Pretty!

Hey everybody! Lansing’s Rae Blackledge, proprietor of Rae’s Yarn Boutique and my sometimes-boss, always-friend, has a design in MagKnits!

What’s MagKnits? It’s an online knitting magazine. What’s her design? Socks! Not just any socks, though. Slinky Socks. In eight (count ‘em) sizes from an infant to Ladies’ XL. With a cool cuff that looks Rainbow Brite or something fun like that, but with no purling (tricky grrl, that Rae). Not one purl in the whole design, though it looks as though there are many!

The socks also include an afterthought heel for those itching to try that technique, or for those who want a replaceable heel because they wear theirs out quickly. (Yes, they can look funny off the foot but they look just great when you wear them… I promise. The pair I’m wearing today were made this way, as a matter of fact. Go look for yourself at the MagKnits site.)

But Rae’s not the only local person involved with the pattern. My friend, Sharon P of Knitknacks was test knitter/sample knitter for the infant socks shown on the pattern page and here to the left. Cute, cute cute!

Congrats, Rae! May your website get deluged with hits because of this newfound fame.

How lucky I am. Yarn and working with it makes me really happy. I don’t care about diamonds or resorts or expensive bottles of wine. I love wool. It’s really easy to make me happy. Put some yarn or fiber in my hands (wool, mohair, alpaca, any animal fiber) and see my face light up!

Apparently lately I crave more of this fiber-inspired happiness than usual. I’m knitting myself some turquoise opal socks, finished one green wool/mohair slipper-footie and started another, finished that pair of Turkish-inspired socks, dabbled with a crocheted bag whose pattern is a little frustrating, started a crocheted hat, and got out the spinning wheel for the first time in months.

I’m sitting here in a sunny window, listening to Seth Bernard and Daisy May, and spinning pretty colors of superwash wool into yarn. Drinking great tea. This is the life, as Brian likes to say.

The other day I finished a full bobbin of single ply yarn in berry tones, that I’d started before winter came. Today I’m having fun playing with randomness. I am spinning three other colorways, a handful at a time, into one single ply. The plan is to ply the multi with the berry and see what happens. Either it will be a mess or a riot of fun. Crossing fingers there! Photos when I’m further along.

Photos: 1) Almost-complete hat (ran out of yarn maybe 1.5″ from finishing hatband but this is the view you’d see if I were wearing it, from the back. 2) Daffodils blooming in my Mom’s yard. Daddy planted them before he died in 1973. I always take comfort from these flowers. 3) Flowers on table of Gone Wired Cybercafe’ on Easter morning.

I had a lazy Sunday. I have recently needed a lot more sleep than usual, and so I slept till noon. OK, I went to bed at 2am so that’s not as bad as it might sound but it’s still noon. That sure makes the day seem short before even starting!

I didn’t work as much as I usually do on Sunday, at least not on my business stuff. Usually I teach on Sundays, but not on Easter!

Brian and I went to the Gone Wired Cybercafe’ for some nice tea… it was more busy than I expected for Easter, but they pointed out that MSU finals are in a few weeks. And not all students will go home for a “traditional” Easter, not all students are Christian even if they are near the home where they were raised. So there we were by a nice sunny window in a lovely cafe that was about half-busy. Very pleasant.

I knit on my First-Time Toe-Up socks that I’m knitting along with my class at Rae’s. (Can I call them that if they are not *my* first time making them?) These are a turquoise/aqua/white/blue-black Opal sockyarn, and they are knitting up very pretty, even prettier than in the ball. And somehow I lucked out and the striping matches from one sock to the other. Opal has really long stripe repeats that are hard to even find, so how I lucked out I don’t know.

But I’m also working on a new project. I’m crocheting a hat for myself in a new lightweight Noro yarn. It’s a rayon blend, not sure what else is in it but it’s very rainbow-like and maybe DK weight.

The yarn is wonderful… I have dreamed of a tank top in it, but right now I already have yarn purchased for a tank top and spring is not a good time for splurges. One skein seemed most reasonable to the pocketbook, and if the hat turns out well I’ll wear it considerably more than any tank top.

I am sort of making up a single-crocheted hat from the center out, in a spiral. The colors are magnificent. If I can get this thing to fit well (I expect I can), I sure expect to get some use of it this summer. My best hats are angora, which are pretty warm in summertime. And I wear hats almost every day… during winter for warmth, summer to protect my hair from sun.

This hat is a bit like some imported cotton multicolored hats I have purchased over the years. They are really wonderful in summer but they fade in the sun and if multicolored they will run in the rain. Maybe you can imagine the hat, it’s a smaller version of the kind people use to cover their dreadlocks sometimes. My best one is pretty big for my needs and mostly fuschia with a bunch of other colors. I even embroidered on it some, to put brighter colors on top of the paler colors in the pattern.

My new hat-in-the-making has all the best attributes of these hats that are hard to find in stores. And it’s in colors I really wear a lot (one ply changes color very slowly from cobalt blue to turquoise to periwinkle to forest green and back to blue and purple… the other ply is like a bright rainbow. Gorgeous.

I do better with crochet when I can make things up as I go rather than counting stitches and matching a pattern. I even tried on this project to count, and when I did, it got a little bulged-out, although that works fine in the center of a beret. Yet when I started just working by eye, it flattened right out and looks just gorgeous.

I put my regular angora beret on the table and put the new hat on top of it, and I still have maybe two inches before I start decreasing again toward the hatband. I’m really crossing fingers that I’ll have enough yarn with one skein. If it was knit, I’d have way more than necessary, but crochet makes a thicker fabric than knitting and eats yarn by up to 1/3 more, from what I’ve read.

(The crocheted bag, now that my crochet class is over with, is sitting and waiting for me to have the patience to count stitches. It’s really gorgeous but I’m not even finished with the third of six panels (and then it needs straps). Maybe it will be the sort of thing I can work on in the car sometime when Brian and I go somewhere together. Long trips are good for thinking-projects.)

What else did I do Sunday? I cleaned… I mean I really dug down in the kitchen and moved things that have been in the way of my working on the counters. Things went on shelves or in cupboards so that I can start cooking more again. The kitchen looks like someone else’s house now! Not really, it’s still plenty cluttered but I cleared off two counters where I can work.

And once I cleaned it, I made dinner. And then I rewarded myself with brownies I made without wheat/corn/potato/yeast/egg/dairy/nuts. Yum! Good brownies, really. It takes a bit more thought to translate recipes into anti-allergy food, but then my little inner toddler gets a treat. Gotta love that!

And I’m sitting here, past my bedtime, crocheting a hat, listening to Daisy May sing one more time, and drinking some very nice Ceylon black tea while eating a home-baked brownie. Why would I want to go to sleep? This is as good as it gets.

Here’s my brownie recipe for you adventurous ones:

LynnH’s No-Nothin’ Brownies

Veggie Oil Cooking Spray (or just liquid oil)
3/4 c Oat Flour
1/2 c Brown Rice Flour
1/2 c Buckwheat Flour
(May substitute 1-3/4 c of whole wheat pastry flour or all purpose wheat flour if not allergic, for above 3 ingredients.)
1/2 c Cocoa Powder (such as Hershey’s all-cocoa powder, not hot drink mix)
1-1/2 t Baking Soda

3/4 c Dark Brown Sugar

1/4 c Light Olive Oil (or Veggie Oil if not allergic)
1/2 c Water
3/8 c Honey (or Corn Syrup if not allergic)
1-1/2 t Good Mexican Vanilla
1-1/2 t Lemon Juice or Lime Juice (substitute vinegar if not allergic)

-Preheat to 350F.
-Oil two glass bread pans (spray or wipe with oil/paper towel).
-Combine dry ingredients except sugar, using wire whisk.
-Add brown sugar, mix well with dry ingredients using whisk.
-Add wet ingredients, mix with fork (will be fairly thick).

-Divide mix between two pans and bake 20-25 min (center will be depressed with sides higher and pulling away slightly from the edges of pans).
-Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

They cut better if cooled before eating… if you can resist! Otherwise, wet the knife before cutting and cross fingers, preparing for many delicious crumbs.

Photo: My “Cozy Corner Teapot Sweater” (Tea Cosy). Not a perfect illustration for today, but any reading is nicer with photographs, somehow. And tea was a big part of my day today, at any rate. I re-organized my teapot collection. (And drank much tea. As always.)

It’s Saturday on a weekend most Americans call a holiday weekend. That means no classes for me to teach.

On top of that, we have had beautiful weather this week. The daffodils came out on Tuesday, and yesterday I think it was that I saw the first forsythia bushes in bloom.

So what did I do today? I started with a lot of paperwork, especially entering things into my Quicken program. (Did I ever mention how much I like Quicken? That is, other than its budgeting feature…) My business runs quite a bit on cash, so I have to enter business cash receipts into a cash register (like a check register) if I want them to show up on my year end reports for tax time. It’s good to get those entered as soon as they accumulate, but sometimes I fall behind and end up data-entry queen. I did that this morning.

This afternoon I actually got out my spinning wheel. I love spinning on the front porch with good music playing. I put on my Seth Bernard and Daisy May CD and started back spinning on some roving I have not touched in months. Now I have an overfull bobbin (and I have a Louet which has large bobbins) with lumpy-bumpy single-ply washable merino. From my friend Tracy Bunkers of Bonkers! Fiber. In raspberries and related dark/light pinks/purples. It’s pretty lovely, I’d say.

Then I took the bag of three other colors of the same superwash (darkish purples, spring green, and turquoise with green/purple accents) and divided it into small bundles. I put the bundles back into the plastic bag. It looks like very large candy or something! Now I plan to spin a second single-ply, also lumpy-bumpy, by pulling out random colors from the bag one at a time and spinning them into one multicolor. I’m hoping I have about the same amount of fiber in the bag as I do on the bobbin I’ve already spun. Then I can ply the two together and make some pretty fat lumpy-bumpy handspun in irregular fun colors, tied together with the berry strand.

My dream is that I’ll have enough multicolored yarn for a pair of legwarmers. I’m not sure if that will play out, but I really hope it will.

It was good to be back on that porch today. I wasn’t out there very long, but it was great. Yesterday it was really warm, summerlike at 69F degrees. Today, it was more like 60F, still sunny but slightly breezy and on the porch I had to wrap up to be comfy. It was still worth the time out there. I sooo needed to have it warm up outside! I was so done with winter!

What else did I do? I’m not really done yet, but I re-coded my patterns web pages. My old paypal buttons had ceased to function. I put new buttons in, and tested the main pattern page but I still need to test each individual page and see if the buttons work right. In fact, I just got an email from Thalea letting me know of one “hiccup” I programmed in. Aaargh! I did fix it fairly simply but I really need to doublecheck everything, and soon!

I’m going to sleep earlier tonight than last, and hope that nothing on my website confuses anyone too much while I’m sleeping!

Photos: Images of the last few weeks, the end of winter and start of something warm. 1) First mini-daffodil, bloomed about a week ago in the side yard, in a protected spot on the south side. I love these for being so early! 2) Over a week ago this was the view out my side/back door. It was hailing, you can not see that, but as I stood in the doorway there were small bits of ice bouncing off the ground into my back entry. Notice that at the same time, there was incredibly bright sun just about a block away, with shadows in the middle of a hailstorm. Brian saw a rainbow but none could be found from my yard, I definitely looked.

4) Finally… my favorite view each spring. Our side yard, full of blooming violets. They are wild. If we put weed killer on the yard, we would not have this riot of purple blooms before anything else blossomed. They usually bloom a week before the daffodils. Pretty, aren’t they?

When we were at Magdalena’s Teahouse last Saturday, one of the performers was Seth Bernard. Brian knew who he was but I’d not met him before. We traded CDs, as performers often do.

Then I went home to do some deskwork. I popped the CD in the computer drive. (The CD is called Seth Bernard and Daisy May. Period. Keeping it simple and direct… like the music.) And I had a hard time paying attention to the deskwork.

Oh, My! I love this. It’s not my normal thing, either… it’s earthy, grounded but more twangy in places perhaps, than I usually would listen to at home. (I typically choose from 1920’s early jazz/tin pan alley, 70’s folk/pop, and African/world music.) Yet it’s just right. It’s just plain authentic. It’s what it is, they are who they are, and there is so much to love about that.

I’m SO glad I have this CD. I’ve played it several times already and not done with it for a while, for sure!

They both are clearly great musicians, upon which the rest of the magic stands. He’s got a sort of grounded, calming voice that makes you want to listen to every word. And I really love his lyrics. He’s truly a poet.

Her voice… as a singer myself, I’m blown away. The sound is wonderfully expressive without pushing too hard, soulful without trying to be someone else. I kept thinking Janis Joplin, to be honest. In all the good ways. She is young, but she is strong and grounded. What an instrument that voice is!

I like much about this CD, but I *LOVE* Daisy May’s voice best of all. What a talent; a down-to-earth, expressive talent. A young woman who already clearly knows who she is and sings her heart out from that centered place.

For the record, these two also clearly have friends in all the right places… that is, as backup musicians. The CD website says “…Dominic Suchyta on bass, Drew Howard on pedal steel and Andrea Moreno-Beals on cello.” Top notch, seen often at some of the better gigs in Lansing that I’ve attended.

If you love good vocals, check this out. If you love authenticity, dive in. It’s just as good as it gets.

Follow the link above and you can listen to “Shine On” by Daisy May (bottom left of web page). Not just a little clip, either… the whole song. Go on, follow the link and listen away.

The Fabulous Heftones (Brian and I) have some big excitement coming up this year. Some of this will have more information coming (times, for example) but here is part of our schedule coming up:

New York Ukefest, Sunday April 30, Greenwich Village NYC
Special Artist, Magdalena’s Teahouse, Thursday May 25 9-10pm, Lansing, MI
Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine, Dinner Entertainment, Saturday June 10, 6:30-8:30pm, East Lansing, MI
CD Release Party, Magdalena’s Teahouse, Sunday June 25, Lansing, MI (Time to be determined.)
Cooper’s Glen Music Festival, Saturday August 26 (I believe 5:45pm), Kalamazoo, MI

Can you see I’m getting a bit excited here? What a fine set of performances this is, and we have a few more pending. You’ll hear it here first, my friends!

OK, this is the re-constructed post I lost the other day. Sigh…

I taught Bloom Shawl at Threadbear, to Crystal and Kathy. I’d met both of them in previous classes. Kathy wanted a special wrap for her sister in law, and found the perfect colors in Cambridge mohair blend.

Crystal wanted a cotton, casual wrap for baseball games and other outdoor events in the summertime. She started out with a neutral multicolored Butterfly mercerized cotton. She ended up with the same yarn but in red, burgundy, and charcoal. I think she’ll enjoy wearing this one.

Both shawls are very different from the three yarns I’ve seen the shawl done in so far (Noro Blossom, Multicolor Mohair, and Noro Silk Garden) yet very nice, indeed, in new ways. I think they are going to like their results.

Oh, and to answer Hobbit’s question on the blog… those funny padlock-looking things in several of my photos, are stitch markers made by Clover. I *love* these tools! They work like a safety pin but without coils to catch in the fabric. You can either mark the fabric itself or keep the marker on your needle between sections of knitting. In this pattern, we used them for both purposes.

I got two emails Monday regarding healthy, organic foods. The first came from Miko Fossum of Magdalena’s Tea House on East Michigan (just a few doors west of Emil’s restaurant, across the street from Green Door Lounge and Gone Wired Cybercafe). They have a new healthy kitchen there, and I’m sure I’ll be trying it out soon! Miko writes:

…we have vegan and wheat free options on our menu. I don’t know what your allergies are but hopefully we offer something that works for you. We get our delicious organic greens from the Giving Tree farm. I suggest trying our “raw” soup. So delicious, uncooked, full of enzymes and it makes you feel really good. I also do an amazing green smoothie, or a purple blind date smoothie that is getting well received.

The next note came from Teresa Lee, of the Mid-Michigan knitting guild. I’ve known Teresa since we were kids, though it took us a while to figure that out. She found an article on a stone grain-grinding mill that has been put back into production, not far from Lansing. That article is from the Argus Press, Owosso’s daily paper. Read it here:

http://www.argus-press.com/articles/2006/04/08/news/news2.txt

Thanks to those who write. I really appreciate you!

I just hit Ctrl-W (close window) by mistake and lost my lovely post about my recent classes at three shops. Whoops! I’ve lost heart so I’ll have to retype that when I feel more up to repeating.

So I’ll talk socks. You know I love socks, right? As in, I had over 80 pair of storebought socks before I discovered that I could knit my own? So I’m really really really happy to be back focused on my favorite knitting subject lately.

I finished that Turkish-Style Toe-Up pair for me this week (started in a class I taught at Threadbear), which was my 126th pair ever. Since May 2001, my notes tell me. Then I just finished one sock for my brother and will mail him that sock before completing the second. I know the foot fits, but we’ll see if he likes the way I finished the cuff. Crossing fingers, these are different than what he buys because he’s hard to fit.

I taught Fast Florida Footies and Afterthought heels at Threadbear in the last few weeks. It’s great to share my enthusiasm with students. My FFFootie that I made in class was an infant size 0 (will be a sample at a yarn shop, no doubt) and it was cute but doesn’t count as a pair in my sock count.

I’m knitting a First-Time Toe-Up pair, very slowly, in fingering weight yarn that I dyed myself. On size 0 needles. For me. Eventually, that is. They are my waiting-in-line socks between other projects. I’m on the cuff for both of them, so it won’t be forever, but they are low priority.

But now I’m teaching two First-Time Toe-Up Sock classes at the same time. One’s on Fridays at Rae’s and one is Mondays at Little Red Schoolhouse. At Rae’s I’m knitting along with multiple-turquoise Opal fingering/sockweight yarn on size 1 needles. At LRSH I’m knitting a Lamb’s Pride bulky slipper-footie on size 7’s. Loving both of them! They are very different socks but made with the same pattern. Love that, too.

Right now it’s a little too cool in the house and I’m wishing the slipper footies were done so I could wear them as bedsocks. ‘Night!

Photo: Sock Rae (of Rae’s Yarn Boutique) knit from yarn I dyed. It’s my Cushy ColorSport yarn (DK weight washable merino) in colorway Lynnabelle… which consists of three different turquoises. I do repeat the colorway from time to time but have none in stock right now. She knit lace with an afterthought heel, for a female friend with a large foot. For the record, afterthought heels can look funny in photographs, but they look very nice on a foot.

As promised, here’s a photo of some socks. The one on the left is Irene’s sock (she’s finished a pair now, surely, as she had less than an inch to go on the second sock over a week ago). It is knit in a handpainted DK-weight yarn (light sweater weight, knits for sweaters at 5.5st/in) which she bought at Threadbear Fiberarts.

She can’t remember the brand and neither can I, but it’s just perfect for this pattern! The color changes really accentuate the center-front slipped stitch pattern.

For the record, the center sock is the first one I made, from which I transcribed the pattern. The right sock is my own that I’ve been knitting with Irene. I finished my pair on Thursday night.

I admit it. I LOVE clothes. I love fabric, color, and assembling things together, sometimes in such a way that nobody but me knows I really planned to look like that.

I can look odd to today’s fashion sense. The longer I live, the less I worry about that. In fact the longer I live the more inclined I am to dress in an outrageous fashion. If the colors “go,” why shouldn’t I wear a plaid sweater with a print skirt? I haven’t done quite that yet but I get pretty close. I amaze myself.

But whether your style is urban casual, rugged outdoorsy, drama queen, goth or country-club chic (or anything else I haven’t mentioned), I strongly believe that costuming is an artform. And I mean not just on stage but every day of the year. Some of us are not into thinking about it, some of us make a life of it.

And the most glittery, fun, shiny, dress-up clothing I own is the dress I got in Cairo the week of Christmas, 2004. I wanted to show some friends the dress so the photo I posted in the previous column was not quite enough to show it off.

This dress is all about making a girl look as much female as is possible. It has accents where my curves are, and there are little glass-beaded fringe bits that move everytime I move. There are sequins, rhinestones and beads all on the same fabric surface. It would be “too much” if it were not made for theatre. It’s a costume that could be worn no other place but on the dance stage. And it’s just incredible at making me look great when I move to the music.

Yes, I can be a diva. OK, I admitted it. That is not the only character attribute I have, but this dress brings it out in a big way.

Some other days, I want to wear the largest sweater I own with leggings (like thick cotton tights without feet), legwarmers and a shawl… and just curl up on the heatvent or couch at home in total comfort. Not worrying about how I look at all.

But some days call for rhinestone jewelry and (gasp) even makeup. And I become Eudora, the diva dancer. I look so different that people who know me casually don’t recognize me until I speak to them. That’s sort of fun, actually.

I’m not the greatest dancer I know, but I’m pretty good or I would not have been able to audition into the Habibi troupe. I really love dancing and I smile like crazy the whole time I dance. Folks always remember my smile after the dancing ends. People always enjoy having me dance for them- I’m having such fun that they can join in and have a good time with me. How cool is that?

OK, done talking about myself for at least a short while. I present here two more pics of the dress for my friends to see… and then I’ll come back with photos of (gasp) knitting! My usual obsession, that is.

Friday night I had great fun dancing as Eudora at Aladdin’s. I was joined by Jennifer, whose dance name I don’t know. The crowd was great, and the employees were particularly into the dancing last night. I always have fun. This was no exception.

Saturday Brian and I play from 6:30-8:30pm at Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine in East Lansing (next door to Silver Dollar). More fun will be experienced there, I’m sure of it!

Here are two photos of Friday night. 1) Me, as Eudora, dancing by Brian’s table. Sally got this shot, and it makes me smile. 2) Jennifer looking serene as she moves with grace across the floor.

I always make a horrible mess pushing toward a deadline. I typically also don’t sleep properly when in the big push. So now my taxes are mailed and my house is screaming for attention, and I’m in need of a full night of sleep (or two or three). So what did I do after getting home from Rae’s on Thursday night?

Movies. You heard me right. Me, the “I don’t like movies and TV” person. A friend sent us a handful of very old MGM shorts in DVD form (I don’t have a VCR but our computers can handle DVD) and we watched them while eating dinner on the couch. I knitted and crocheted and fell asleep on the couch while Brian was still watching.

It was amazing stuff. Sort of Zigfield Girls/Vaudeville. A lot like the old Jackie Gleason Show, which I do remember watching in the late 1960’s. Preposterous skits, sort of melodramatic, seriously glamorous clothing (sometimes with huge feather fans, sometimes with furs or white gloves, etc.), extreme everything. There were some of the shorts that were more about moving people around (while they were singing) into formations. Lots of filming from the ceiling to see the movement.

It reminded me of marching band, synchronized swimming, the June Taylor Dancers (dancers in a circle on the floor moving legs and arms so that it looks like a kaleidoscope, I remember them from Jackie Gleason if I recall properly)or just plain “staging” for dance numbers on a stage. When I dance with the Habibi Dancers, some of our choreographers are quite good at creating good staging so that the audience does not get bored. (Less experienced groups will do a dance all standing in one place… even when the moves are executed well, it’s more interesting if there is some movement on stage between dancers.)

One of the MGM shorts was more about staging than dancing, it was all about airplanes and the dancers carried around airplanes and they swished them around in the air while walking around the stage bunched into a group the shape of an airplane. Campy and cool.

It’s true I don’t like movies or TV much. However, I do love dance. These shorts were more about dancing (at least the ones I enjoyed best were). I can watch figure skating and dance for a very long time without getting bored, though I mostly would just as soon not watch anything, I’m not much of a spectator.

While I was watching, I finished a pair of Turkish-Style Toe-Up socks for me, the final bits of the socks I started in the class that finished last week. I’m sort of excited, I haven’t been finishing pairs of socks as fast this year and I’ve never worn a pair of socks from this pattern though I’ve knit perhaps 4 socks in this design before this pair. I get to wear them! Woohoo! They are my finished pair 125. Maybe now that taxes are over I will download the photos from the last 10 days or so that are still on my camera and give you folks a peek, finally.

After I finished the socks, I went back to my crocheted bag. I’m starting to make fewer mistakes but I find it painfully slow. I count and count and count and count. The way my brain works, I lose focus somewhere before 50 stitches even when counting by 2’s and then I have to start counting again.

With knitting I can put markers between the stitches and know that, say, 20 stitches should be on either side of a marker. With crochet, each stitch is separate and once you place a marker, that marker is only good for that one round. Ugh. I’ve never been diagnosed as ADD but this particular quirk of my brain sure makes me wonder. It is really a problem with crochet and slows me down a lot.

Anyway the bag I’m making is called the Boho Bag from a Patons Classic Wool pattern booklet. It includes knitted and crocheted bags to shrink/felt/full and many of them include beads in the design. If you follow the link here, my bag is the third photo in the list. It’s shown in black, red, spring green, white, orange, dark green. I’m doing it in peacock colors: four versions of turquoise/teal/jade and two versions of purple. It is turning out really pretty.

But this bag may take me forever. My class is complete today, this is our 4th week and we’re doing some things in class that I have not done, so I won’t just be finishing the bag in class. And I have so many other classes (the ones I’m teaching myself) where I need to stay up with the class. I have two First-Time Toe-Up sock classes going right now, one at Little Red Schoolhouse and one at Rae’s. I started a new pair in both classes. At LRSH I’m on bulky Lamb’s Pride yarn for some practical slippers. However, at Rae’s I started some Opal in turquoise/cream/black specks, in fingering weight. I’ll love them, but I must confess I did not need to start another pair of socks in skinny yarn right now.

I can not TELL you how many pairs of socks I’ve knit on this week. All what I consider current projects. There are the 2 pair for classes, plus the pair I just finished. Then there is the pair for my brother which have both feet/gussets finished and just need cuffs. And the pair I did in my own handpainted fingering weight yarn, in the same pink/purple colorway as the Turkish pair (but lighter, different yarns take dye differently).

I have other pairs sitting languishing in the “current projects” UnFinished Objects (UFO) boxes. Yes, two boxes of UFOs. I so often start a project to demonstrate to a class, and then the class is one or two sessions and the project gets dropped for the next current class. Often it doesn’t bother me, because typically I do finish these things given some time. Right now it is starting to bother me. I think it’s because lately more of the projects are not socks and they need me to knit on them at home. And I almost never knit at home.

But in the scope of things, if two boxes of UFOs is my worst problem, I’m doing pretty well, don’t you think???

Photos: Dancer at Cairo Marriott Hotel, December 2004. I’m giving you you old news from my trip that was over a year ago. However, these photos haven’t been on the blog before (and at least the theme is right since Friday is dance night for me at Aladdin’s).

I’m still catching up on my current tasks including processing the photos currently on my camera (from the last week or so), but I’m guessing you’ll get more current photos soon.

Oh, Joy! I get to dance at New Aladdin’s this Friday! I’m sorry that one of the two originally scheduled to dance is not feeling up to par, but I’m so very excited that I get to dance!!!

I had a class with 3 people in it scheduled Friday, and then 2 had to drop out. So that last one will get a class but with a revised schedule, and then I get to dance. Woohoo!

I am just like a little girl. I love to play dress up. I put on my turquoise dress and I become Eudora. Sort of like Cinderella only better!

For those of you in Lansing, Michigan, the show is in an outer building of Frandor (same building as the video store). Show times are about a half hour, one show at 6:30 and one at 8:00pm. No cover, but the food is so good you’ll want to try something. If you don’t want a meal they have fresh smoothies and great mideastern baked goods such as baklava, and the best rice pudding in town. Please join us for a fun time!

Photo: Me as Eudora at Aladdins last September.

I finished taxes at 1:18am, gave myself an hour of crocheting in peace on the couch and crashed. Wednesday I seemed to be more-than-fashionably late to everything, but I got through all my appointments. After dance rehearsal I had dinner at Altu’s with my friend Anne and her delightful 4yr old daughter. Life could be much worse.

Tonight the only deskwork I’m doing is printing out the tax forms and envelopes to mail. Then more crochet, or so goes my plan. The bag is developing very nicely, the colors I chose are really really nice, and it looks like nine zillion single-crochet stitches from now I’ll have a beautiful, peacock-colored felted crochet bag. I’m swearing at it a little less often, anyway, and ripping out is bothering me less than it did a week ago.

Off to sign forms and stuff envelopes. Then I’ll practice music with my sweetie and end the day with more crochet.

I’m scheduling classes this week for the next few months. Last minute requests, anyone?

I get to be alone today, at least for several hours. I sooooo love these days. The loudest sounds are the furnace fan blowing and the keys clicking as I type. I thrive in public (though I definitely prefer tea with one friend to a room full of chaos) but all things need balance, and after days of teaching I really am loving this quiet.

I did start my day socially. My friend April called and she and baby and dog were going for a walk, did I want to go? Yes, I did. So I held the leash of a curious but timid large dog, and April pushed the stroller.

It was a pleasant walk, if chilly. I saw my first robin of the year, which was a great way to start the day. At one point we found wild violets and picked one for little Isabel (who will be two this month). She held that violet between her two fingers for the longest time, just checking it out. Very sweet.

In case anyone wonders how small this city of 130,000 really is, small would be the answer. April and I were walking several blocks from home (we live next door to one another with a side street between us) and someone drove their car into their driveway in front of us. April exclaimed that she knew this person, and darned if I didn’t know her as well! April works with her, and she’s in the knitting guild. Small world, this town of creative souls.

But now I’m alone. The sun is behind clouds but I can tell there is a sun up there. I am at my desk, which is my favorite place in the house. I’m drinking some good Ceylon tea I got at American Bulk Food yesterday (which surprisingly has a great selection of mideastern foods such as great black oil-cured olives and incredible whole dates). This is the best new tea I have sampled in a long time. The label is written partly in Arabic, and it reminds me of my visit to Egypt. Over a year ago, already.

As soon as I hit “save” for this blog I’m back to taxes. (Thank goodness, the headache seems to have exited the picture.) I expect to finish the tax reports today. Then I will laze on the couch and knit whatever the heck I wanna knit!!! Or so go my best-laid plans…

Photos (December 2004): 1) Tea in Cairo, Egypt, at the Marriott Hotel restaurant with the Egyptian theme. 2) Tea on the road between Cairo and Alexandria, at a sort of tourist spot, with a peasant theme. The best breakfast we had in Egypt! A sort of flat bread (fresh from the clay oven) with local honey and a cottage-cheese sort of dip, incredibly tasty and authentic. Notice that both these restaurants served tea in glasses rather than cups.

It has rained a lot in the last few days. Tony and I saw slushy snow coming down on Monday so I’m crossing fingers that’s the last snow of the season. After all, we always see at least a little snow in April. I love the thaw and flowers of spring, but not the rain/mildew. I guess that is life, the up and down come together often.

I started a First-Time Toe-Up sock class at Little Red Schoolhouse Monday night, for four ladies who all work together. It was quite fun indeed! There is nothing like teaching. Nothing.

Before and after that, I did taxes and had lunch with Tony. My dear friend. Who just bought a bit o’yarn for socks and is going to try my First-Time Toe-Up sock pattern on at least one of them. Or at least he’ll try my toe. He’s an experimenter, so there is no way to know today what heel he will try when he gets to that point. I’m delighted he’s trying my sock.

More rain-induced headaches in the last few days. Today it did not arrive until almost all the class was over. I had dinner and napped the headache away. I’m hoping tomorrow it will be gone. Most of these headaches last 2 days, so I’m crossing my fingers.

I plan to finish the tax project tomorrow. If I finish soon enough I can go to Ann Arbor (Arborland Borders Books)… to the knit-in I’ve not attended since maybe before the holidays. If I feel crummy, though, I’ll just nap and take it easy instead. I have planned a lot for Wed/Thurs so I need to be rested and happy for that.

I just noticed what I just typed. Why is it I have to feel crummy to take a lazy day? I overschedule myself so much that I have to not do something I love in order to take a lazy day.

Sometimes you need “bathrobe days” where you slouch around in clothes that never get out of the house, hang on the couch knitting or reading or listening to comfort music, perhaps napping. But I seem to only do that when I am sick. Seems that every few months anyway, I should just take one to rejuvinate my inner self.

OK, off to bed (I’m dating this Monday but am actually typing it in the wee hours of Tuesday morning). I thank every one of you who have ever taken a class from me, or bought a pattern from me, or yarn or buttons or a kit. I love this life I live, although it means a lot of running from class to class and project to project. I could not do this without every one of you. Thanks.

I have had a busy week or so, teaching all sorts of classes all over the place. I had Fast Florida Footies at Threadbear last Sunday. I had my high school knitting program on Monday. Wednesday I finished Turkish-Style Toe-Up socks at Threadbear, then a private knitting lesson, then CityKidz Knit! program at Foster Center. Thursday was more CityKidz (followed by a pure-entertainment knit-in at Rae’s).

Friday I was a student in Crochet class at Threadbear. Saturday I taught Bloom Shawl and Sunday was Afterthought Heels, both at Threadbear. Monday I will start a First-Time Toe-Up sock class at Little Red Schoolhouse at night, after another session with the high school group.

I was born to teach. I am really grateful for weeks like this.

Speaking of teaching, the book for Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, Michigan has come out. I’ve got three classes offered, and in the book itself I wrote two articles. One article is on dyeing with Kool-Aid drink mix and one is a comparison of three dresses I bought in Africa, each in different countries. Photos of the dresses (and an Ethiopian Shepherd’s Hat) are inside the back cover.

My classes? I’m teaching Polymer Clay buttons/beads on Wednesday, Absolute Beginner Knitting on Thursday, and Design your own Turkish-Style Sock all day Friday plus Saturday morning, a 1.5 day class. I’ve already heard from one friend who is taking the sock class, and many folks I know have mentioned their interest in buttons.

The beginner knitting class is a bit of a risk, because it’s likely any newbie knitter has never heard of me and will take the class on faith. I am crossing my fingers on that one. It could be such fun to have a room full of new knitters for a full day! My theory is that folks come to events like this in groups, and someone’s daughter or friend may tag along and take the knitting class. Or that’s the idea, anyway!

So help me put the word out, my friends. Workshops start Wednesday, August 16 and vendors are there Fri/Sat/Sun the 18th/19th/20th. Only a few vendors are there on Friday, if I remember right, but the place is open fully and hopping on Sat/Sun.

I’d really love to see a bunch of you beloved readers at the festival. Let’s see what we can work out.

Photo: I took this at last year’s Michigan Fiber Fest. Dawn, a student in my sock class, brought this assortment of Fast Florida Footies to show me. She was planning to give them as holiday gifts. I was honored, of course.

My week? Classes, Taxes, Classes, Classes, Taxes, Food (thank heaven), Classes, Taxes, not enough sleep (pout). Good people, good food, no time to do anything optional. I Love Love Love teaching so I’m not at all complaining… just explaining why you have seen no new photos here for days at a time. Even though I’ve taken many.

Taxes? A time-consuming hassle but no big deal other than the looming deadline. I’m in the home stretch. I have all my reports ready and now I will fill in the forms thanks to Turbo Tax. I’ll be ready to be done with that.

For the record… on my patterns page, there are Paypal buttons that are not working properly. I know this (thanks to Ginny for pointing it out first, unfortunately on Socknitters’ Ad Day) but I will not be able to look into it until Sunday night. If anyone out there is looking to buy any patterns, just send me an email at Lynn AT ColorJoy DOT com and I will send you a Paypal invoice in the time between my classes.

Off to sleep. Yay.