We’re on dinner break from NYUkefest. We perform in an hour and a half. I just finished altering my dress, talk about close deadlines!!!

I am having SO much fun. So much. The other performers are such cool people. I talk too much which is sometimes a problem, but when it comes to meeting people I’ve only met once before, it’s really a benefit to just blurt out hellos before I wonder if I’m overstepping my boundaries. Friendly is the right side of things if I guess wrong, so that part is going just fine. Everyone is great, so friendly and wonderful, and everyone just gets along well, it’s as ideal as it could be.

Mom called, she and Fred made it to New York this afternoon but will come in to the East Village just in time for the show. They know people here so they have more than one thing to juggle in their short time in the city.

It will be SO good to have Mom in the audience. I always am glad that our relationship is so nice these days and how she really seems to be my best fan. I do always miss my father, who taught me to sing harmony and introduced me to the concept of syncopation, which is a very important part of the early jazz I prefer to sing (from the 1920s).

I’m grateful for this cafe. The name of the place is Chomp! and it’s at 196 Second Avenue near 12th Street, on the east side. It’s a new place, a very fresh-food, friendly place, all the sauces are made in house, and the owner is really enthusiastic. And we got connected to the internet relatively easily, which was really great given our difficulties elsewhere.

Off to sing. It will be a good evening.

It rained the whole way so we took about 11.5 hours to get to NYC. It was pleasant being in the car together, though… we had a nice time.

Wednesday night late we found a huge Whole Foods Market (two stories, almost a city block wide) and ate at the deli. Good food and a non-tourist environment, not fancy but just right. I felt so spoiled to have so many food choices past 10pm.

Thursday morning we met up with a bunch of other folks here for the Ukefest, they were from the UK, Sweden and France… had breakfast at a deli close to the hotel and then spent the pleasant sunny morning playing music and chatting. It was lovely.

At another point Brian ran into a few performers from Australia but I wasn’t there at that point. So far, we’re the only folks from the USA who we’ve seen in the uke circles. That will change tonight when we get to the first of the many concerts this weekend.

Right now I’m in a cafe drinking tea after eating a great salad made just for me. Brian had a pannini (sp) sandwich and fresh squeezed juice. He’s playing uke quietly here and I’m saying hi to you all. I took a lot of photos but will download and develop when I’m not on battery power in a public space.

I’m still hoping to find at least one yarn shop and one museum. We’ll see how that goes.

Brian and I will be on the road all day on Wednesday, driving to the New York Ukefest. This will be the extent of my posting until I can get online long enough to do you justice.

If anyone is in NYC and wants to meet, I may be accessible on Thursday and/or Sunday… maybe even for breakfast Saturday though I won’t know for sure until I get there. I will be online intermittently (the hotel does not have access, or did not last year, but the place where the festival is held is wireless… of course, where it’s so crazy-busy that it’s hard to sit and type). If you want to meet, though, please send me email and I will indeed get it and write you back if at all possible.

My goal is to get to the radical lace and subversive knitting exhibit, probably Thursday. I also hope to hit at least one yarn shop. There is one between the hotel and the theatre so I know I’ll get there, but if I’m lucky I’ll find my way to School Products as well. One day at a time, one hour at a time, I’m not quite in charge of my schedule this trip either (that is a high-class problem and I know it).

Oh, my beloved New York, here I come!

I do have photos of the Arboretum and other Dallas spots for my next post, but that goes past my DFW Fiberfest story. I had one last wonderful photo left to share with you, though, and some thanks to make.

The board of the DFW Fiberfest made everything work so smoothly it was a delight. I’m used to driving wherever I go, whether it be Minneapolis (14 hours), New York (11 or so hours), Boston (16 to 20 hours depending on how often one stops), or Chicago (3.5-4hr). When you drive, you can take care of your own last-minute needs. However, I flew to Dallas and was feeling a bit powerless over that part of the trip.

Then I got there and was whisked off to the Whole Foods grocery store where I could get food I needed. They made sure I had a refrigerator in my room so I could keep the food a while. And when my big box containing 3 pasta machines for my polymer clay class never arrived, they didn’t flinch but instead whisked me off to JoAnn Fabrics where I could buy what I needed to make the class go without a hitch. Top notch.

However, beyond the business workings of it all, they were warm and caring people who made us feel absolutely welcome and valued. From going out of their way to pick restaurants where I could eat (and not yet not bore the other diners), to giving me gifts, making sure we had a quiet room to mellow out during lunchtime, and even showing up halfway through the afternoon with a cold bottle of water without even needing to ask. Melody looked up halfway through her Sunday afternoon class to find she was being handed cough drops (she needed them, and again she did not even need to ask).

I have never felt so valued and so welcomed. I sincerely hope I get to return there again. I understand that they rotate instructors from year to year… may I be blessed with another rotation.

Thanks to Margo Lynn, Molly, Jerry and Mary Kay.

And isn’t this photo of Jerry and Melody just the best? Good folks, they both are, and looking fine in this shot.

Sunday in Dallas, I taught my Polymer Clay class for Fiber Folk. We mostly talk about techniques that would work well for buttons, although folks can use them for other things (buttons, shawl pins, hair sticks, pens, crochet hooks) as well. In polymer clay, there are a lot of high-contrast techniques that are impressive but they work less well for blending into a sweater or jacket than faux wood or ivory/layering techniques. I focus on the more subtle techniques for this class when working with knitters/crocheters, because of this.

I had eight folks signed up for this one, which was about maximum capacity for the kitchen area I was assigned (because of access to the toaster oven I needed). Polymer clay class is always exciting. It is fascinating to see how folks using different colors in the same techniques can turn out such different works.

One woman had made a lovely soft felt shawl the day before. She made very lightweight buttons to embellish the felt piece.

Another student had purchased a whole set of polymer clay working tools (including rubber stamps) at a garage sale and she expermented with those as she worked. Esther was given some wooden coffee stirrer sticks and carved them into points on one end, and made them into hair sticks. Several folks covered pens and/or crochet hooks. It was a prolific time. Esther even worked through her lunch hour (actually 2 hours) and really got a lot of clay worked. It was a wonderful time.

I took photos of some of the trays that came out of the oven. Also see Esther wearing her new hair sticks, straight out of the oven!

Sunday after all the classes were done, we said quick goodbyes to Margo Lynn, Mary Kay and Jerry. Molly was a great sport and trucked Lily and Melody and me to dinner at a sort of French-food eatery where we sat in the corner and decompressed, talked, laughed, told stories and generally wound ourselves down from the fun weekend.

Lily had been scheduled to fly out on Sunday night… but as New York was having major weather troubles, her flight was cancelled and she was rescheduled for Monday morning. We all moved to a hotel closer to the airport fot one night and Melody and I talked until all hours again. Great fun.

Monday was to be goodbye time for we instructors… Lily and Melody would head home in the morning. I had never been to Dallas before, and since I like to “collect cities” I had planned a day of adventure into my trip plans. I was looking forward to it…

In order to travel light on the airplane trip to Dallas, I shipped two packages ahead of time. Sunday’s polymer clay class requires pasta machines (made of metal) and polymer clay (heavy as a brick but smaller). I shipped the clay on Saturday and the machines on Monday. The clay got there early in the week, and the machines never made it.

Therefore, Saturday after our great Indian food, we headed over to the closest JoAnn Fabric store. Luckily for me, polymer clay is enough mainstream now that JoAnn has pasta machines (made specifically for polyclay artists) on the shelves regularly.

Lily decided she wanted to go with us. She lives in New York City where real estate is sky-high expensive and there is not room for the sort of mega-store that JoAnn can be. In my area, we used to have many “traditional” JoAnn stores (mostly fabric, smaller stores) and now we have one traditional and one superstore (called ETC, Expanding Your Creativity, which is more than half crafts… I worked part time at this type of store in Lansing for six months about five years ago). The superstores are becoming the new standard for JoAnn. Lily was excited to experience this with us.

So Margo Lynn, Lily and I trucked off to the closest JoAnn ETC store. We found two pasta machines on the shelf and I put them in my cart along with a few slicing blades. Then we wandered to the yarn aisle, where we perused the JoAnn store brand of yarn, deciding which we liked and which not, and whether we thought the price was where we wanted to be. You know, the normal knitter experience.

Lily found a few books and magazines on the shelves containing her designs, and we had fun looking at those and other books we had not seen yet. The collection of crochet books was larger than I’d seen before in one place.

Once when I was working at the Lansing JoAnn, I noticed a pile of books waiting to be shelved, and on top of the pile was LuAnn Udell’s Lark book in the “Weekend Crafter” series, “…Rubber Stamp Carving: Techniques, Designs & Projects” which contains a self-portrait I carved and printed on soft block media, about 4″ x 6″. That was really thrilling… I picked it up and showed my piece to a co-worker… and then returned to my post at the cutting counter.

The store was nearly empty except for us, because it was nearly closing time. We all went home with something, though small, other than my needed class supplies. We headed back to the hotel.

Melody and I talked far longer into the night than we really should have… that slumber party thing… with no mom to tell us to calm down and sleep. It worked out so well for us to room together… Lily prefers her own room to mellow out after teaching, especially since she’s on the road so much. Melody and I wanted to share the cost of accommodations, and we got along famously. She grew up in Chicago, so she’s a midwesterner who knows my most-familiar city well. We had so much in common!

In the end we had to sleep and teach one last day of classes. I was ready. Polymer clay is the sort of class that can only go well, or better. I’ve been teaching it for 15 years and every class has been good or better or fabulous! I was happy this was my final class, there was no way to have anything but a good day. I was not disappointed.

I got no photos of the JoAnn adventure, so I’m sharing one that didn’t actually fit well into other parts of my story. This is the Board and we three out-of-state instructors, just before we all took turns drawing tickets for the raffle prizes. You can see how nice it was there, with all these great big windows letting in the outdoor beauty without the outdoor elements. In the photo’s back row you see Jerry. In the front you see Melody, Lily, Margo Lynn, me, Mary Kay and Molly.

On Friday on the way to dinner, both Melody (MacDuffee) and I noticed that there was an Indian Restaurant we passed. We schemed Friday night in our hotel room to ask for Indian dinner on Saturday or Sunday. Luckily for us, everyone else agreed. They ended up taking us to a different place, which was fine with us. The place was called Clay Pot, if I remember right.

This was a different Indian cuisine than I’ve had before, which was really cool. It had a lot of sauces with nuts in them, and one of the choices was mango duck which I’d not seen before. Jerry got a chicken with pistachio sauce dish which was absolutely a work of art presented on the plate (see photo). Gorgeous. Mine (eggplant and potato with spicy tomato sauce) was not as beautiful in presentation, but it was really tasty. I really enjoyed my meal, and the great company at the table. We had most of the crew… Margo Lynn, Jerry and Molly from the board (Mary Kay could not join us), and Lily Chin, Melody MacDuffie and I who were the teachers flown in from out of state. Such fun, and such food!

Here is a blurry photo taken of us by a restaurant employee. We have Jerry, me, Lily, Margo Lynn, Molly (not looking at all like herself, somehow) and Melody.

On Saturday at the Dallas-Fort Worth Fiberfest I taught Toe-Up Socks. We used my First-Time Toe-Up sock pattern as the class handout. This sock has the easiest toe of any toe-up sock I’ve ever tried and my students consistently enjoy making this pattern.

Toe-up socks, for the uninitiated, are done “upside down” from a standard western-style sock construction. Some reasons to do them this way are a)you can knit it to fit without knitting a gauge swatch before starting, b)you can knit until you run out of yarn and stop knitting at whatever height they end up… especially good if you might run out and perhaps can’t get/can’t afford another ball of that yarn), c)there is no chance of making a twisted ring of knitting at the top and having to rip out and start over.

The down sides of toe-up socks are a) that you start with relatively few stitches and a whole bunch of needles (we call it wrestling the porcupine when we are on the very start), and b) if you bind off too tightly, the sock won’t fit over your heel and therefore unwearable.

Fortunately, we spend a lot of time in this class talking about the second of the issues, and this toe starts with a square of flat stockinette fabric which is made on 2 needles, before starting to work in the round with more needles. It’s a little fussy for one round (you pick up stitches around that square) but it gets better quickly.

These days, I make almost all of my socks with this toe (though I alternate this heel with afterthought heels depending on a number of factors including my mood of the day). I like making socks with sweater yarns, thicker than typical sock yarns, and I never know how much sock I can get with a ball of yarn. I typically buy two balls and stop when I’m out of yarn on each one. Since I have small feet and like short cuffs, I get plenty of sock with all but sometimes the bulky yarns. It works for me!

The class I had on Saturday was my largest, I had eleven folks on the roster. The room was set up like a classroom with tables, and I felt so far away from the folks in the third row that I asked permission to move the tables around. We made a nice U-shaped space and I could be close to everyone that way. I think the more people you have, the more essential it is to be accessible to everyone. Folks in the back row often won’t ask for help when they need it. This worked out great.

I had a number of folks in the class who had tried to make various other toe-up socks previously with varying degrees of success (usually not so good). In this class I had them bring worsted-weight yarn so they could a) see what they were doing more clearly, and b) have a chance at finishing a real sock, at least the foot. Several of them worked like crazy knitting their foot at lunch. I told them we would make a heel after lunch whether they were ready or not, and they would just have to rip and re-knit later if they weren’t ready. Had I not done that, we would not have finished class in time.

In the end it worked out very well. There was a two-hour lunch which was ideal for this particular class timeframe. I think only one person really ended up with what I call a “frankensock” which is something containing all the parts of a sock but which will not fit a human foot. She was having struggles with her eyesight (cataract surgery) but was happy with what she did accomplish and was all excited to start a real pair with some of her handspun yarn very soon.

I really enjoyed the class. I had two students from Friday who were also in my Saturday class: Sabine and Jane. Jane actually followed me to Sunday’s polymer clay class as well, and I was very grateful for her constant company over the weekend. She hadn’t heard of my work before she received the flyer for the fiberfest, but she then visited my site, ordered a pattern to see if she liked my style, and then signed up for all 3 classes. We had some serious fun together for three full days. I’m happy about that.

I didn’t remember to take photos in my class on Saturday. Here’s a photo of Jane from Friday’s class, actually. And here is a photo of something that really touched my heart… someone snuck into my classroom after class that day when I had stepped out, and left me this little thank you note, bigger than life. Thank you, to whoever you were. I had a great day, too.

And just so I can share this photo with you, here is a shot of the park across from the convention center. Folks were there all the time, especially folks walking dogs. It was a beautiful view we could see any time we were in the vendor area in the hallway. What a nice change it was from Michigan snow and the Friday tornado warning! It was windy but beautiful and sunny Saturday. I enjoyed the view.

Apologies for this last delay in posting. I found out that this weekend was the deadline for applying to teach somewhere and I dropped everything to put together proposals for 7 classes and a bio. Send good vibes on that one for me if you would.

Friday was exciting. After class, the board made sure the out-of-town instructors would get good food. They took us to a favorite nearby restaurant. It was starting to blow and rain, and our fearless leader, Mary Kay, stayed tuned in to the weather report as we were on our dinner run. We were expecting hail and severe rain weather. We got that and more.

We did sit and order our meals at the restaurant and were waiting for it to be cooked when the sirens went off. The restaurant was all windows so we decided to get our food to go and run back to the nearby convention center where the festival was based. The middle of the building is a storm shelter so that was the safest nearby place for us. We piled into the car with bags of food and drove through large hail to get to the festival. We had greeters posted at the back door of the loading dock. We ran helter-skelter from the car to the building, and ate in the safe area of the building.

In the end, the all-clear happened in time for us to start the fashion show only 10 minutes late. Even though we had so many door prizes to give out that everyone in the audience went home with at least one prize, and even though we had four collections of items to show, we did not go over at the end of the timeframe. Mary Kay was in charge of the show and she did a great job making sure we all were ready to go on when it was our turn. She coordinated dozens of garments and it went without a hitch.

The first collection was a trunk show from the Berroco yarn company. The second was from a local yarn shop. The third was student works, the fourth was instructor works. There was a lot of breadth in the work, from scarves to lace shawls, to baby garments, adult garments and accessories. Some were knit, some crocheted. All thought-provoking, some downright incredible.

Most of us modeling were instructors or Board members, with a few friends. There was one exception. Jennifer heard there would be a fashion show. She’s a local model and called the Board offering to participate. She did a great job. She fit Melody’s tiny crocheted tank tops perfectly. The one she is modeling here fit her so well that Melody ended up gifting her with the item. It was in a magazine at one time, I don’t have the details. We were very happy to get to know Jennifer and to have her in our show.

Here you have an assortment of garments from all sections of the show, in no particular order. We have Jennifer in a crocheted tank by Melody MacDuffee, followed by Lily Chin looking absolutely wonderful in a Swarovsky-Crystal beaded top of her own design (I don’t know if it was knit or crocheted). Then you see an adorable child’s crocheted skirt set (I don’t know the designer), and me in beige perhaps for the first time since 1977, in a linen-stitch chanel-style jacket that fit wonderfully, from the yarn shop collection.

After me is Margo Lynn (listmom of the KnitTalk Yahoo group and Board member, the one who suggested me to the Board for this festival) wearing a sunshine-coral beach set, crocheted top with tassels and ribbon with a straw bag, I think also from the yarn shop. This is in sharp contrast to the jackets she wears so often, which made it easy for her to camp it up a bit and play the cheerful teen on the runway.

Then comes the fun of the evening… Mary Kay, board member, wearing what was intended to be a scarf/boa made of synthetic “fur” eyelash yarn, a tube which she turned into a top just for fun during the show. She had a great time with that as did all of us.

On the right we have a really cool lady whose name I don’t remember and I’ve lost her card… she has a yarn line with lots of cashmere, the line is called JoJo. I bought some of her superwash fingering for socks but I have misplaced the yarn also at this late hour… I’ll dig that out before this travelogue is done. Anyway, she’s wearing a sweater with an unusual hemline from Berroco and holding a Berroco child’s garment. I liked how the sweater draped but wasn’t sure about the hemline, I think the pattern is on Berroco’s website and may check it out more later.

The final photo at left is a local knitter whose name I seem to remember is Melissa, wearing a top from Berroco which fit her so well it was a shame she could not take it home. She won my Fabulous Heftones In The Garden CD in the door prizes and was delighted, it’s her sort of music. I was thrilled for us both. Her red purse was made from car seat belt material, it was really quite shiny and interesting, I liked it.

OK off to bed for now, I have a class in the morning. More Dallas yet to come, stay tuned!!!

One of the parts of my contract with Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiberfest was that I had to have a contribution to the Friday night fashion show. Some of you who have been following my blog for a while have seen my hints at the project I developed.

I knit a pair of over-the-knee legwarmers, inspired by Turkish sock colorwork. There are 13 colors of yarn: four turquoises, four hot pinks, three hot greens, a yellow and a purple. There is wool, angora, silk and cotton. Turkish knitters mix it up and you get a much more rich look than if a piece is matchy-matchy with the same brand/texture of yarn. I love this depth.

I also brought my self-portrait for show. I’m proud of the piece and folks seem genuinely interested in it. I’m glad I brought it, especially since Margo Lynn, my contact, said she was hoping I’d bring it.

For the record, the shawl is my Perfect Hug Shawl in the Goddess size, knit with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan which is a soft boucle, held together with Louisa Harding Impressions kid mohair/polyamid ribbon yarn. Because it is many sizes too large for me, I could wrap it around me in sort of a Stevie Nicks fashion, which made it dramatic for the fashion show… yet because it was pink like my unitard, it didn’t distract from the legwarmers or the self-portrait, which were the focus of my presentation.

I have a lot of photos of the garments/people in the fashion show but no time to post them all right now. At least you can see the two pieces I entered. Yes, I’m sure I looked this wild in the photo of me with the self portrait. I did my best to be a good model and stand still a while in a few key spots. In reality, poor Molly was using my slow old camera to take these photos and I was definitely a moving target. I’m still a toddler when it comes to keeping still! I like to think that’s related to my artful passion for life or something, yadda, yadda. It sounds good, anyway!

Friday in Dallas, I taught Design Your Own Turkish-Style Sock. What a fun class it was. I had four folks (it was a Friday so folks had to take time off work, and it was a more advanced class). They made my day a pleasure. Here you see Linda, Kris, Sabine and Jane, happily knitting away.

I taught a version of this class in Allegan (Michigan Fiber Festival) last August, but I had the luxury of a day and a half. This meant that my students were able to go home and work on their projects. Some even started a second sock that night. They came back for the final half-day session where we talked about top-of-cuff finishes (including stretchy bind-off methods) and alternative heel types. However, in Dallas I had one day and no time for homework. I made a few adjustments which made it work fine in one day.

We decided to do the socks on 24 stitches so that they could get all the structural parts of the design done in time (in Allegan we used 32 stitches, click link for photo). There was less knitting time required for the foot, especially, which allowed me to get the heel started right after lunch. Fortunately, there was a two-hour lunch break and the folks who needed to catch up were able to do so during that time. It worked out very well.

The socks turned out incredibly cute at that size. They just loved their projects. Everyone was close to finishing up the top of their sock at the end of class, and the socks were looking great.

I forgot to take photos of the class projects at the end of our day. Luckily for me, Sabine and Jane were in my Saturday class as well, and they brought their finished works for me to see. Here they are! I must say I’m delighted, and they were, too.

I moved my post, Just Plain Happy (about focusing on happiness), to April 11 in order to not interrupt the flow of my Dallas Travelogue. Just click the link if you’d like to read it in the order in which I actually wrote it.

I’m getting settled in again after being gone so long. I know some of you are waiting semi-patiently for the travelogue.

The truth is, I lost my power supply to this laptop on the trip (I think I left it in the waiting area at Detroit Metro Airport on the way to Dallas… drat). I had enough battery for one night and that was the end of that! Thankfully, Diana and Eric (brother and sis-in-love) found me a new one and had it ordered/shipped in time for me to get it on Tuesday afternoon.

It was a busy Tuesday, anyway, and I did not have much time to write or even sit at my desk. However, I downloaded 250 photos while Brian and I were rehearsing and I developed a few for you after rehearsal. Wednesday I will start the travelogue…

Meanwhile, here are some photos I am very happy with. I took them out the window of my friend’s car on Monday as we were sightseeing.

I love skyscrapers. I love, love, love big cities. The first big city I ever really experienced was Toronto, in 1975. I was a Junior in High School.

That trip changed my life. I felt so right when I was in the city. During that trip, I took a lot of photographs from the sidewalk pointing the camera straight up. I was in love. I’m still in love. Can you tell it from these city photos? Aaaaah….

More everything later. For now I need to sleep. Thanks for staying tuned in while I was away.

I’m home. Dallas was wonderful in every way. More soon…

What a day. I roomed with Lily Chin Thursday night and we were picked up bright and early to teach at a nearby convention center. I taught Turkish Sock Design and it was a great class. I got photos but don’t have time to post them, photos may need to wait until I return home the way this is going.

We went as a group for dinner and then a “Severe Thunderstorm” hit. Hail and big wind happened, the sirens sounded and we quickly took our food to go (from a restaurant full of windows) and went back to the Convention Center which is a tornado shelter anyway. We had a fashion show which was great fun, actually several shows/groups of work. There was a Berocco trunk show, a trunk show from a local shop, student works and instructor works. It was fun, I got to model several pieces besides my own and it really was a “ham it up” sort of enjoyable time.

We got back to the hotel and juggled roomates a little, so Friday through Sunday I’ll be rooming with Melody MacDuffee, a crochet/bead artist. We originally thought we would only be roommates on Sunday so it’s just a small adjustment.

Melody and I seem to have a lot in common. She lived in Chicago a long time so we have that in common… and we are scheming to eat Saturday or Sunday at the Indian restaurant we passed tonight on the way to the other restaurant.  I hope our plan works.

Saturday I teach Toe Up Socks. I love teaching this class. It will be a good day.

Off to sleep…

Wow. I’m in Texas. I didn’t believe it could feel this warm. I got off the flight wearing my turtleneck, light wool sweater, hat, thick Kristi Comfort Wrap, legwarmers… normal Lynn wear much of the year in Lansing. That’s not a cold day getup, it’s sort of a lightweight sort of fall season getup. After all, I was carrying my coat over my arm, and had tucked away gloves and earmuffs for my return voyage.

I had to un-layer fast. I got the under-turtle off, and shed legwarmers and shawl. I still had wool socks on and a loose thin sweater but I rolled up my sleeves and it was great. The temperature? 74F. Aaaaaah…..

Off to prepare for tomorrow. I’m scheduled for a very full day on Friday so I’m not sure if I’ll check in here or not. I won’t forget you.

Photo: This was the view from the hotel room at dusk. City-like, indeed. I love cities and now I’ve collected one more!!!

i think it is important to really notice our good thoughts and feelings when we have them. The nature of being human is that we typically have many emotions during any particular day. If we are fortunate, the good and neutral overshadow the down feelings… although sometimes the balance is less than optimal.

Today was sort of a perfect day. After the snow we had just over a week ago, it was glorious. The sun shone, and it felt warm when the wind stayed calm. On days like this, Lansing is at least as pleasant as any other city and I’m glad to be here.

Altu and I had our weekly sushi lunch date and afterward we went to a coffeehouse to chat until I had to go to work. We sat outside for maybe 5 minutes to say we did, but the wind got the best of us and we took cover inside.

On the way from the coffeehouse to Foster Center, I rolled down my windows (thanks to the heat the car had absorbed sitting in the sun while parked) and played the radio more loudly than I usually do. I was in a business district, not a neighborhood, and I tried not to worry too much that my not-that-loud but louder-than-usual music might bother others. (In a neighborhood I would have rolled up the windows or turned down the volume.) I totally drank in the music and the sun and the springtime.

The National Weather Service says it only got up to 60F today (15.5C). It felt better than that with the sun. I was a very happy woman!

The happiness followed me home, long after dark. May a little of it rub off on you folks!

A related thought:

If you wish to think about focusing on specific thoughts/feelings (such as happiness) and allowing yourself to do things outside the norm which might make you stand out (such as playing music with open windows in my case), I would love to invite you to read Deborah Robson’s blog, The Independent Stitch today. Deborah Robson is the publisher and co-author with Priscilla Gibson-Roberts of the excellent book, Knitting in the Old Way.

She interviews the author Eric Maisel about his new book Ten Zen Seconds. (I have grown much from working with his book Fearless Creating.) He says in that interview:

The more you care about how others view you, what others are thinking about you, how seemly you are looking, and so on, the less permission you will have to do anything “unusual” in public, whether that unusual thing is stopping to write a paragraph, do a little tai chi under a tree, or spend ten seconds centering.

Perhaps that quote will entice you to go and read more???

It snowed and snowed and snowed. Despite above-freezing temperatures, we got accumulation, my car had maybe 2-1/2″ (6cm) of snow on it when I went out at 3pm.

It is expected to be lovely in Dallas, around room temperature during the day though we will probably get rain Friday. My internet friend who lives there says it’s beautiful right now, the bluebells and azaleas are abundant right now. I love how that sounds.

It’s warm enough here to turn off the furnace and open the front door a while to air out the dusty house. I love how quiet snow can make a city neighborhood. Even dusk is pleasant (I usually dread the loss of sunlight) when it’s so peaceful.

I did all my “out of the house” errands and am now on the “pack clothing, Pack class support materials, pack food, pack gizmos” part of the routine. Right now I feel that the schedule looks do-able. We’ll see how I feel in 5 hours when I need to sleep.

I’ve been planning and planning and getting ready for my trip to Dallas, to teach at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiber Festival. And now I have approximately one full day and then I wake up and go to the airport.

I always have to find something to worry about, worry seems to be built into my genes. If I’m more worried about what to wear than my classes, I figure I’m doing pretty well.

So much to say, my friends… Ive started several posts and never finished them and may never finish them. You may hear from me sparsely until I’m done teaching.

Is anyone who hasn’t said hi yet, going to see me in Dallas?

Sis-in-Love Diana/Otterwise is at it again. She is a really good web researcher, and when she starts digging for information there is no end to the coolness she unearths.

Today she starts with Japanese knitting, then proceeds through Norse naalbinding (and naalbinding in other parts of the world), and finds herself with the music of Malawi in Africa. Somehow she segues to an ending of Scottish food.

If you want one or many new sites to adventure… Diana’s the one. Check out her post

Journey from Knitting in Japan to Scotch Pie (via Africa)

I must confess that I’m not on top of the classical music world. In the late 1970’s I was a music major and they really tried to help me understand classical music and enjoy it.

I have a really strong bias toward vocal music, however, and so much of the classical music they wanted me to learn about was totally instrumental. I never really got into it the way the school hoped. My ears search for a voice or voices to focus upon… any language will do, I don’t need to understand the words. Just a lone voice and I’m a happy listener.

There are many reasons why I never finished my vocal music major, that is only one tiny part of the big picture. But it explains why I did not know who Joshua Bell was until today.

Joshua Bell is really important in the classical music world. The violin is the most important instrument in many classical pieces, and he is one of the most celebrated violin players in the world. He also is a bit unconventional according to the Washington Post, the only source of information I personally have on the subject. He apparently doesn’t wear a tux on stage when the orchestra behind him is tuxed-out. They say that sometimes Bell earns $1,000 a minute to play violin. That often ordinary seats in the theaters where he performs cost $100 a show.

The Washington Post played a little trick on commuters in Washington DC, with Bell’s help. He played a 45 minute concert, incognito, dressed in jeans, in the L’Enfant subway station. Predictably, many folks (like me) did not know who he was. As a matter of fact, it appears that only one person knew. The article about this experiment is very entertaining (though longer than I expected). I enjoyed every single word, though I’m aware that there might be many ways to approach the story. This is one angle on it, and it covers a lot of territory. Bell made $32.17 in tips, in the 43 minutes he played.

The concept of folks walking right by one of the finest musicians in the world, without a glance, reminds me of Joni Mitchell’s song “Real Good for Free.” In her case she goes by a clarinet player in NY City and notices how good he is. She realizes in her story that that night she would be on stage playing to a room of folks who would pay for the experience. She has an inkling of an idea, that maybe she could ask to sing with the clarinetist. Then the light changes and she walks away. I have all the lyrics to the Mitchell song on my LDTH Poetry Collection Page: Real Good for Free

Context is a big deal. Presentation can be bigger than the thing presented, at times. Have you ever bought something that was a nice color and not really expensive, just because of the color? I think the chain Target uses color to market/sell merchandise brilliantly. I’ve bought dishes and towels, and earrings, and nylon stockings from them before, just because of the color.

Sometimes the item we loved in the store is just not as wonderful at home, when it is no longer surrounded by the other colorful items it was near on the display. In that case, presentation is more substantial than content. I hope we don’t do that all the time… but I’m human and my humanity means that I can ignore much, in pursuit of my daily routine.

And then sometimes, the guy in the jeans playing instrumental music over by the trash bin, is a treasure. We are definitely human.

My mother is a strong woman. She has always been strong inside, and after she was widowed with two young teens at the age of 38, she just got stronger. Of course, I didn’t even appreciate this until I lived many years myself. I particularly benefitted from her as a role model, when I found myself single at the age of 32.

I love to travel, and put 250,000 miles on my 1985 VW Golf, mostly alone and mostly during my years as a divorcee in my mid-30s. I love Boston, so I drove there five times in three years. I had a wonderful time, met a bunch of people I enjoyed, taught polymer clay at a bead shop and did polyclay demos for a craft store. Nobody told me I couldn’t do it, so I did. It didn’t occur to me that someone else might not do the same thing, assuming they wanted to do it.

Sometimes when I tell people that I have taken another one of those “long-distance alone in the car” trips, they respond: “by yourself?” For years I thought it was just an individual thing. I’ve come to notice that it’s more universal than I first thought, that most people will not travel alone.

In fact, I am shocked to discover that some people will not dine alone at a restaurant. For me, that is one of the finest luxuries I can give myself. I can knit or read while I’m waiting for my food, and I have a little island of peace for myself during that waiting time. I am a social being but I need those “down” moments to fuel myself for the next class or performance.

I realize now that the reason I don’t think anything of my trips, is that my mother traveled alone, too. She did a lot of things that I understand now were unusual for a woman at the time she did them. She was the first mom on our block to have her own car, a gold Corvair we called the “Putt Putt.” She was the only mom on our block to get a full-time job. In fact, she had been a teacher before she married my father and she was determined to go back to teaching as soon as she could. She got her first full-time, permanent teaching job (that is, first after she had her children) when I was in 5th grade, 1968. This was unusual in our area at that time.

Mom struggled with reading all her life. To start with, she is legally blind (though able to drive with glasses). She did not get glasses until she was in school, I think she told me she was in 1st grade freshman year of high school. Imagine!

On top of that, mom probably has dyslexia (sp?) although I’m sure she was never tested for it. Spelling is hard for her, and she has learned how to compensate with a dictionary and spell-check and having friends check her work for her when necessary. I think this struggle made her even more determined to be a teacher, so that she could help kids who struggled the same as she did.

Mom is a gifted reading teacher. In fact, I’ve heard on two different occasions, that peers have exclaimed “Liz can teach a *rock* to read!” I know she is proud of this reputation. She spends hours of her own time preparing materials for the kids, figuring out one more way to explain tough concepts. She teaches the letters, their sounds, numbers, key words, and the value, looks and names of coins (children often think a penny is worth more than a dime because it is larger).

Mom writes a chatty letter/email regularly and sends to family and friends. I’m so glad she does this, she is an excellent storyteller. For years she told stories orally, she did not write much because she was afraid of spelling issues (or so it appears to me) and now she’s busy making up for lost time.

She tells about her life, the recipes she tries, the adventures with friends and family, gardens, observations of the world around her, and the kids she is teaching. She is retired now, so she only teaches reading, but she goes to the school as many days a week as she can fit into her busy schedule. She does this in Michigan part of the year and Florida part of the year. She has changed probably thousands of young lives, the ones who really struggle at the beginning of their journey to learning.

This year in Florida, Mom has worked with over 20 kids on a single day, usually two at a time. I know she finds it absolutely rewarding although I think sometimes she gets tired from the effort it can take.

Mom has given me permission to post her most recent text about teaching her kids in Florida. I find it very interesting, and I think you may also.

I have just five more days with my little ones at school. I had a total of 24 children. Three moved away.

One I just got two days before vacation. He is a little one that is just learning the English words for the numbers. I am hoping I can have him learn them before I leave.

Twelve of the children I do not see anymore as just in the last couple of weeks I have been able to “graduate” them. They know their numbers to 31, can count to 31, can count down from 10, know the names and values of the coins and dollar, know the names of the letters and their sounds, know the sound when I produce it, know rhymes and know 33 words in reading.

The last seven children I am hoping can learn the numbers as they have a special day when they honor just the students that know those skills. Some of the ones I work with have been working so hard to learn them. It would be nice if they honored them for the hours they put in to learn it even if they could not quite master it.

This year, I brought my troll doll the first week so they would know my name. Later they asked if I had more troll dolls. I have six, so I brought them in two by two. After that I started to bring in my stuffed animals. First came the primates, next came the bears, next was the rabbits including one that is huge that I bought for $2 at the park sale across the street. I still have a few more to bring. They love giving them a hug as I set up things for them.

I will miss my little ones when I leave. I think I may be the oldest person they know as a person. They continue to find out more about old people. I was holding the door open for one boy and he reached up to feel my are where the muscle hangs down. Neither of us said anything, but now he knows what it feels like!

We had the word old one day. A little girl said I was old. I agreed. She said, “You are going to die.” I said, Yes, everyone dies some day. Do I look like I am ready to die?” “No.”

The twins wanted to know how I make the papers for them. I told them I had a printer for my computer. “What does it look like?” Well, that was not easy to explain, but when I put a new ink cartridge in, there is a print out of the printer and each of the steps to printing. I took that in for them to see.

Joshua was having a hard time learning the name and value of the penny. He wanted to make a pencil rubbing of the penny like I would do some days. I told him he could when he learned it.

After about five more days he came into the room and asked if I was going to check him on the penny. I said I would after our first reading paper. He was all smiles. He knows the penny now and yes, he did get to do a penny rubbing!

Thank you, Mom, for being a “guest blogger” today.

Brian found another remarkable Youtube video. This guy has an ensemble, seven women and a male bass player. Six women are playing marimbas, one is doing an aerobic example of maracas. They sway together as they play, it’s choreographed as well as a musical event.

And the bass player? Slap bass in a tux. Vaudevillian, slapstick, riveting. I can’t really tell on my tiny speakers how he plays but I’m guessing he was good… in any case he’s entertaining and then some!

The girls wear matching dresses, matching hair, matching smiles. Wowie.

I’ve written about Bliss Blood here before, Brian and I met her on the Ukulele Circuit with her band The Moonlighters. First we met in the Pocanos and again last April at the New York Ukefest.

In New York, we sat next to one another as we sold our CDs so we got a chance to chat. It turns out that she knits and crochets, too, and we had a number of other things in common. She lives in NYC now and likes it a lot.

Today I got an email with a bunch of her upcoming performances detailed in it. Also, she added a little postscript about an article we could read online. A quite in-depth article about Bliss, talking about her musical work going way back to previous bands and especially her work when she was in Houston. She has been in NYC over a decade now, but I was impressed with all the information packed into a one-page article with a large, good photo of Bliss.

If you have a minute, perhaps you’d like to read the article. I enjoyed it very much.

And if you haven’t listened to The Moonlighters yet, consider adding one of their CDs to your collection. I’m particularly fond of Live in Baden-Baden, myself. I have two of their CDs but that’s the one I would have worn out had it been pressed in vinyl. They have a new CD, too, and I’ll be picking that up in three weeks when we are back in NYC for this year’s NY Ukefest.

If you go to her website, it lists all the bands she’s in. Underneath each band it has a link to listen to MP3’s. If you click the MP3 link, you will see a list of songs Bliss (and her various bands) recorded… you can listen to several excellent full-length cuts (each song indicates which of her bands recorded that song, they are not grouped by band).

If you have the time and inclination, you can listen to a lot of music before you leave that web page! Serious talent, much pleasure, great stuff. I highly recommend a visit.

Trish and Karen both asked about the yarns used in the Watercolor Bags, shown in yesterday’s photo. No, they don’t use any of my own handpaint (I’m still looking for a feltable yarn that I would be proud to put my name on) though I am in love with some of the colors.

All of these bags in yesterday’s photo used Cascade 220 for the solid color, though Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride works as well. The wild rainbows appear to be Diakieto Rococo, the top left subtle persimmon is Paintbox and the mottled (unstriped) pink and aqua at bottom right I believe is Malabrigo merino.

I have made one bag with Paintbox (not pictured, it “lives” at Threadbear). It had many stripey colors in it, and the blue stripe resisted felting fully though the other colors did well. The bag here doesn’t have blue in it so we are hoping for the best. The knitter had all this information at the time she started knitting, and we all know that shrinking knits is always a sort of gamble, so it will be fascinating.

The Malabrigo screams out to be felted though I’ve never done it yet. I’m thinking it may felt faster than the Cascade, which is how the Autunno bag reacted.

The Rococo also is very soft wool in a “singles” (one ply) although it is a little thinner yarn than the others. According to Threadbear it felts like a dream and I believe it will. The two knitters here used the same needles but one knits more firmly than the other.

I am very interested to see how Rococo works, I love the yarn colors and would love my own bag in that yarn. The only reason I didn’t try it before is that the number of yards per gram was not the same as my specified yarn in the pattern. When the Autunno had a closer specification to my original yarn, I ended up working with that instead, and it did work out beautifully.

Karen’s comment was that when she made this bag (out of the specified yarns, Noro Kureyon and Cascade 220, sample bottom right), the Cascade yarn felted faster. That is also my experience, as the Kureyon does resist felting a bit. I like a more firm bottom of my bag so that works well. I designed it in these yarns so that was the expected result.

When I made the Autunno bag (top right photo, this bag also “lives” at Threadbear), the main yarn felted faster than the bottom. It still looked like a Watercolor bag. No matter which felts faster, the bag has a characteristic shape that works.

I had a very fun Watercolor Bag class at Threadbear which ended last Sunday. We were so excited about the bags, we decided to meet for dinner in a few weeks and see how everyone’s bag came out after felting.

Here are the four bags. Only one is in a yarn I’ve used for the bag before. What an adventure it will be to see how they all felt! Some yarns shrink more from side to side and some more in height, and there is the individual gauge of each knitter involved as well.

I am excited to meet everyone for dinner and get “after” photographs…

LT suggests I snap myself out of the funk I can let myself get into, with the cold weather. It’s a very good point.

I must admit that I am clear that in Lansing, we get snow every April. If we are lucky, we will get it early in the month and be done with it. So that’s my outlook today. This is the last snow of April, I hope. And next Thursday I fly to Dallas to teach there (Woohoo) and it will definitely be warmer than this week in Lansing. I will be indoors for three days, teaching. However, I don’t fly home until 6pm on Monday so if I’m lucky I can see a little bit of Dallas before I go home.

Another suggestion from LT is to post a photo or two of Africa from my trip two years ago. This is an excellent suggestion. We were there for 38 days and we actually saw rain twice, and got wet from rain merely one day on that whole trip. They do have a rainy season but we missed it.

For the record, we spent most of the trip in higher elevations and it was chilly much of the time, especially when the sun went down. Our three-day weekend at Mombasa beach in Kenya was the only time it felt hot… and it surely was over 100F those few days, at sea level on the equator.

The top photo today is in Bahar Dar, northern Ethiopia, where we went to see the waterfall of the Blue Nile. The second photo was a motel/ resort/ restaurant at a crater lake in the ridge valley of Ethiopia.

Thanks, LT!

I spent Tuesday as a selfish, quiet day. I mostly stayed to myself other than about an hour I spent with my friend April. She is moving (sob) but came by the old house and had time for a cup of tea and a long walk. Since the weather was very nice, 70F (21C) and sunny, I spent more time outside than usual.

I decided that I could at least read Stephanie’s book if I could not go to her talk. I got in the hammock (with a blanket because hammocks are chilly under 80F) and read half of her book. I’m not great at sitting still that long but I had a day where I could say there was nothing more important than reading on the porch.

I did a little knitting on my many-colored project, and I did a little work on the last bit of my taxes. And when Brian came home, he took me to dinner for sushi. It turned out to be a pretty good day.

I’m glad I spent that time outside Tuesday, because here is the weather report for Lansing starting Wednesday/today:

I’m grieving a bit… not a death of a person this time, thank goodness. Just the loss of a dream. I thought I’d be going to Chicago to see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (Yarn Harlot) tonight. It looked like I might even be going with Rae. (I missed the Ann Arbor talk to work at Threadbear, not a bad reason at all, but I really wanted to see Stephanie.)

Now Rae isn’t going, and I’m not going, and I’m bummed. I love Stephanie, and I wanted to Represent. To be one of the zillion knitters who show up on her tour and make a statement that we knitters are many, among other things. She filled a 750-person auditorium in NYC last week… I longed to be one of them.

The weather is supposed to be much better in Chicago than Lansing today (although this photo of a fully-blooming bush taken April 2 is proof we have had many good days already). I would have enjoyed the adventure, had I decided to go.

My car needs an alignment (since I hit the curb from distraction when I was in shock from my friend Robert’s early demise). I got new tires already but the self-employed life is such that you must handle essential things (like tires) immediately, but sometimes wait on less-essential things (alignments) until after the next check arrives.

If I drive eight hours on brand new tires without an alignment, the new tires will not be happy. I bought really good tires and I’m not inclined to throw them away early just because I wanted to see my knitting friend at her talk four hours away. After all, she lives only about 5 hours away from me in the other direction… I could just drive to Toronto sometime, right?.

Nevermind that the talk is at 7pm Chicago time, which is 8pm our time. Last time I saw Stephanie speak, the line to talk with her was 2 hours long. After a half-hour talk that means I’d leave to arrive back home at no earlier than 2:30am. Now, I usually am awake at 2:30am, sometimes 3:30. However, driving that late alone is different than sitting at my desk that late alone.

Between the time situation, the car situation, and the lack of a companion, I’m staying home. It seems the smart move. There was a time when I would have forced the issue, waking up at 8am and finding a place that would do an alignment the same day… but that would mean being even more tired at the 2am hour. I’m deciding today to be a grown-up adult.

Now I have a day to myself, with no plans. Well, actually I do have one more thing to do for my taxes which will take about an hour and I’ll do that as soon as I hit “post” here.

I am really digging the relative silence in the house. There is the swish of cars going by and the clicking of the keys, but nothing else. I talked to Diana for 10 minutes at noon. I may just sit on the couch and knit my super-fun, super-colorful project for the Dallas runway, in peace and quiet.

I could drive to Ann Arbor to the Border’s knit-in (or the Sweetwater’s knit-in which I’ve never attended but Riin enjoys… she has a good blog… read Riin’s version of the Ann Arbor/Yarn Harlot event). If Diana could go to Borders I’d join her, but she’s fighting a cold so she’ll be staying home.

If it were as warm as it was last week, I could put up the hammock on the porch and read Stephanie’s new book out there. Now maybe I’ll snuggle in a blanket on the couch or in bed and read it there.

I could go see Rae or Altu (at their respective businesses) or sit at the Gone Wired Cybercafe. Right now I feel like hiding from the world, instead.

April is going to be a very social month… first I’m teaching at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiber Festival April 13-15, then two weeks later we sing at the New York Ukefest… our concert is Friday April 27 but I have six days marked off my calendar before and after that, depending on how our travel plans go (we will be driving to NYC).

So maybe hiding from the world is the best idea for my “free” day. Meanwhile, I’m going to do a little tax work on the computer first. It’s so close I am pretty sure I can file today.

After that? Probably I will knit on this colorful wondrous project that will become a runway item at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiberfest. I have used 7 colors so far, but it will contain 13 yarns/colors by the time I am done.

I found Anne Hanson/Knitspot from Stephanie/Yarn Harlot’s web blog. Anne drove to the Represent tour in Cleveland, so she’s a midwesterner of some extraction.

I looked at Anne’s designs. She likes lace and I’m not big on frilly, girly lace. However, I’ll concede that a few yarnovers (artful holes) are OK in something not intending to cover the body. (I do not like lace clothing that isn’t lined.)

Well… I love love love Elsabeth Lavold’s Silky Wool yarn. I have wanted to make a lightweight wrap in it, but have not found a pattern I liked that was un-lace enough. I like geometrics, not flowers and frills. One friend made a beautiful wrap that was pretty darned good in the lace department. However, it was a triangle and I just don’t like to wear triangle shawls.

But now I’m tempted. Anne’s Hypoteneuse Shawl is wonderful. It’s geometric and made of tweedy yarn, and my beloved Silky Wool is listed as one of the yarns that works for the project. And the model? I’ll never do this piece justice next to the very fine urban dude (with amazing dreads) modeling the wrap in Anne’s photos. Wow. This is totally my kind of shawl.

Now, if I could only truly be urban as well… if I knit this shawl do I get to move to Chicago or New York? Or Paris, or London?

I dream, dream, dream of being a true CityGrrl. Maybe wrapping up in this lovely shawl will transform me as fast as a nod of Barbara Eden’s head in I Dream of Jeannie, or a twitch of the nose in Bewitched. I can only hope.

Meanwhile the only guarantee would be that after the knitting I’d be the midwestern middle-sized-city dweller that I already am, but in a stylish wrap. I’d like it.

Now I just need to find the time to knit for me. Not a sample for a shop, not a design in development, not a project for the runway at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiber Festival. Knitting for the joy of it, for a piece I could keep when it was done.

I can dream, can’t I?

I got the guts to actually check the weather report. Here it is:

More alpaca is definitely the order of the day. Ugh.