Home is where the game controller is cross stitch pattern. [Feeling Stitchy] This really does apply to my home. Maybe a GBA instead?

The brilliant Rubitone concept by industrial designer [Ignacio Pilotto]  I love creative ways to display color gradation … Pantone colors make my eyes cross, though.

A knitted Ash from Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness by [the Adventures of Cakeyvoice] –”This is my boomstick!”  I’m quite fond of Mr. Campbell and Army of Darkness, myself.

Crocheted Ring Bracelet from contributor [Diane Gilleland] on Craft Stylish.

Halloween Ribbon Wreath from [the Long Thread]  This is one of those things that’s so straightforward my brain couldn’t possibly come up with it.  I might do this for the holidays.

A colorful crocheted Hexagon Granny Blanket from [Attic24] - I’d love to do a hexagon afghan (but only after I finish the ones in progress, eh?)

So yeah, the inspiration is obvious. I can’t really emphasize enough how much my summer and winter trips influenced me while I was growing up. Even my family didn’t know that until I said it on this blog, though. I’m not a particularly communicative person, apparently.

Southeastern Iowa is beautiful. This particular area is close to the Mississippi River, which is my favorite body of water (I’ve even swum parts of it, which I think about now and - ew! snakes! fish! tugboats!), and has, as far as I’m concerned, the best weather ever. And if you think Iowa is fla, it’s really not (cue Dar Williams song the Hills of Iowa).

The fall leaf photos you’re seeing now are from Geode Park maybe 10 minutes from my grandparents. It’s a state park around a lake. It would be a rather forested area if it weren’t for all that farmland, but all that farmland makes that an easy fact to overlook. They have maple trees, obviously, which are my second favorite tree behind aspens. Aspens win because there’s nothing like sitting in an aspen grove on a breezy spring day and listening to the leaves chime. I recommend a porch on a mountainside in an aspen grove in Colorado. Really.

I had a pretty relaxed time - went hiking a couple of times, did some sewing, went shopping with my grandparents, and my aunts and cousin came down over the weekend. There was a parade and lots of food (and the amount of baking was ridiculous). One day I took a trip down in to Illinois to visit where my other grandparents used to live, and where they and many other relatives are now buried. I don’t get many chances to wander around there, but I wanted to show Jeff around, because I have a lot of memories there, too.

I think it’s interesting, as I get older, to think about the things that ended up influencing the way I think about the world now. I’ve lived in a lot of places that I think have influenced me. Yet all the factors seem so disparate, and sometimes I think end up existing in sort of tenuous harmony in my mind. In my adult life I’ve chosen to live in three of North America’s largest cities, yet when my mind seeks artistic inspiration it turns to … pastoral Iowa? Okay. Sure. Maybe if I lived in pastoral Iowa you’d see me drawing my inspiration from Manhattan, then?

In any case, fall in Iowa certainly offers a lot in the way of busy farmers working to get hundreds of acres of grain corn and soybeans in before the first freeze. It was a very wet summer and this put off planting and caused Other Bad Agricultural Things (clearly I’m not a farmer). I visited a stretch on the Illinois side of the Mississippi where the fields had a foot of standing water - anyone remember when it flooded in Iowa? That water hasn’t all gone away months later.

Hey it’s me! I’m big on detailed self-portraits, eh? This is sunset on the Mississippi … it’s about a mile wide here. *sigh* Such a beautiful river. In summer there’s a nice little farmstand on the other side near there.

Now that I’m finally getting to taking care of pictures and trip stuff, and my 65+ backlogged emails, and my office-craft area looks less terrifically and horribly messy, I might actually get back to that crafting thing. Unfortunately, you know what one result of my big House Cleanout was? I found all those pesky clothes I’ve been meaning to mend, hem and alter. Isn’t that just a terrific joy? </sarcasm> I have sworn I will get to some of this though, and not just create new messes, which seems to be what I’m most skilled at.

Until I make it back to the computer, I bid you adieu

I’ve also finished the front two pieces, but have not as yet managed to replace the batteries in the camera so a picture of said pieces is not currently extant.

This is what I was working on while traveling. I managed to finish the back and 1.5 sides before I got home.  I’ve begun the sleeves now, but it’s having to take a back seat to another project for a while, just until I get caught up on the things I *really* have to do.

I, being smarter than usual, chose a simple raglan-sleeve cardigan as my first clothing project - no shaping, no armhole weirdness, no complicated stitches.  The pattern is the Matinee Swing Jacket from Lion Brand using Cotton-Ease yarn in Lake (you’ll have to log in to view the pattern).  It’s entirely made of HDC (half double crochet). I will probably add a trim, but a subtle one, and not fussy.  Open squares, perhaps.

Due to the cotton, the pieces will need blocking, but it’s a nice yarn for the project.  It’s the right amount of substance for a light jacket.  I do have problems with finding broken pieces of yarn (tied together) and find that the fiber’s ply separates easily, but to some extent that’s just a cotton problem that’s not limited to this fiber in particular.  The addition of acrylic made it easier to work with, because plain cotton can be on the stiff side.

The jacket, as you can see, is a casual light layer piece with 3/4 sleeves and raglan piecing.  I liked the terracotta they suggested, but when I have to look at yarn for long hours, I am more at home with blue.  My grandmother really liked the color I picked.

I have promised some people more pictures from my trip, and will do that maybe soonish.  I took a lot of pictures, so it’s a bit intimidating, really, and the office is still a mess, though the desk is located.

So where’ve I been?  Well, two days after I wrote my last post, Jeff and I were standing in our living room and decided we needed to do “a bit” of fall cleaning. We’ll go through all the closets, we said. We’ll rearrange the furniture, we said. … A week and a half later, I found my computer again …

I was comparing last year’s Halloween craftiness to this year’s. In 2007 I made an October candy calendar, 3-D Halloween cookies, and Halloween costumes: a ladybug for me and candy corn for Audrey and Callie. I also crocheted a ghost-and-pumpkin set last year. This year I made the quilt for my Halloween swap. That’s a lot by itself, right? I’m still happy I did that quilt, because I finally proved to myself I could do something like that I have a habit of not believing I can do things.  So my Halloween craftiness has been limited this year, only because I was working mostly on non-Halloween craftiness on the side.

Gingerbread Pumpkin Cupcakes

I did make gingerbread as my 2008 Halloween treat. It’s my pumpkin-ey decorated take on a recipe from a Denmark cookbook - that is, Denmark, Iowa where my grandparents live. Many years one of the women’s circles of the town church (there’s just one church, the town only has 300 people) puts out a cookbook of recipes from cooks in the community. The first recipe book was put out in 1949 - my grandma still has an original, which is very “well loved” and held together with a rubber band, as you can imagine. I have a reprint of that cookbook put out a couple of years ago, and that’s where my gingerbread recipe comes from. It’s the recipe my grandmother recommends from the mother of one of her friends.  (The one issue with this cookbook is that it could really use a Table of Contents or an Index!)

As my special treat fer ya, here’s the recipe for Ginger Bread by Mrs. Arthur Meyer (it’s awesome).  I will note that if you make cupcakes out of this, it takes about 20 minutes to bake and makes 12.  Her recipe doesn’t say how long to bake things.

• 1 beaten egg
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1-1/4 cups flour
• 1 t. soda
• 1 t. ginger
• 1 t. cinnamon

Sift flour, soda and spice.  Mix in order given, beat thoroughly.  Batter is very thin.  Bake 350.  8 servings.

Halloween Costumes?  What are You Going To Be?

I am not technically making a costume for myself this year, however I am going to be someone. This is probably only funny to me, but I’m going to be Chris Knight from the movie Real Genius. Yes, I know I’m female and he’s not, but Chris is absolutely my favorite funny, irreverent character from my favorite movie (1984, yeah!), and in some senses, geekdom is really universal, isn’t it? I had such a huge crush on Val Kilmer for such a long time. I’ll be rocking his I love Toxic Waste t-shirt and sparkly head gear from his job interview (”Why are you wearing that toy on your head?” asks Dr. Dodd. “Because if I wear it anywhere else, it chafes,” replies Chris) and of course, bunny slippers (”May I take this opportunity to compliment you on your fashion sense, particularly your slippers”). If you’re familiar with the movie, you will find this outfit and these quotes hilarious. If you are not, you now think I’ve lost my mind.

As a side note, Callie has been with us a year. It seems like just yesterday we brought home a ball of fluff barely the size of my hand, and now she’s pretty fat, has a 6-foot vertical leap, is ridiculously fluffy and is sort of … I don’t know, I guess slightly on the side of demonic.

See what I mean? When did she learn to drink from a cup?

I was reminded of this when I was in Iowa, adding my blog to my grandparents’ email. This little poem about flour sacks was on the screen while I was doing it.  Flour sacks are incredibly useful (so are feed sacks and coffee sacks), I still use them when I find them in stores (antique stores, usually). Indeed they are a part of “Americana” - you can get pillows made from them at the Sundance Store (left) and some people have amazing flour sack material collections, and you can get bags made out of them too.

Anyway, the poem made me laugh, and it was a nice slice of life and history, and I hope my grandma doesn’t mind that I borrowed it.

1930 flour sacks
by Colleen B. Hubert

IN THAT LONG AGO TIME WHEN THINGS WERE SAVED,
WHEN ROADS WERE GRAVELED AND BARRELS WERE STAVED,
WHEN WORN-OUT CLOTHING WAS USED AS RAGS,
AND THERE WERE NO PLASTIC WRAP OR BAGS,
AND THE WELL AND THE PUMP WERE WAY OUT BACK,
A VERSATILE ITEM, WAS THE FLOUR SACK.
PILLSBURY’S BEST, MOTHER’S AND GOLD MEDAL, TOO
STAMPED THEIR NAMES PROUDLY IN PURPLE AND BLUE.

THE STRING SEWN ON TOP WAS PULLED AND KEPT;
THE FLOUR EMPTIED AND SPILLS WERE SWEPT.
THE BAG WAS FOLDED AND STORED IN A SACK
THAT DURABLE, PRACTICAL FLOUR SACK.

THE SACK COULD BE FILLED WITH FEATHERS AND DOWN,
FOR A PILLOW, OR T’WOULD MAKE A NICE SLEEPING GOWN.
IT COULD CARRY A BOOK AND BE A SCHOOL BAG,
OR BECOME A MAIL SACK SLUNG OVER A NAG.
IT MADE A VERY CONVENIENT PACK,
THAT ADAPTABLE, COTTON FLOUR SACK.

BLEACHED AND SEWN, IT WAS DUTIFULLY WORN
AS BIBS, DIAPERS, OR KERCHIEF ADORNED.
IT WAS MADE INTO SKIRTS, BLOUSES AND SLIPS.
AND MOM BRAIDED RUGS FROM ONE HUNDRED STRIPS
SHE MADE RUFFLED CURTAINS FOR THE HOUSE OR SHACK,
FROM THAT HUMBLE BUT TREASURED FLOUR SACK!

AS A STRAINER FOR MILK OR APPLE JUICE,
TO WAVE MEN IN, IT WAS A VERY GOOD USE,
AS A SLING FOR A SPRAINED WRIST OR A BREAK,
TO HELP MOTHER ROLL UP A JELLY CAKE,
AS A WINDOW SHADE OR TO STUFF A CRACK,
WE USED A STURDY, COMMON FLOUR SACK!

AS DISH TOWELS, EMBROIDERED OR NOT,
THEY COVERED UP DOUGH, HELPED PASS PANS SO HOT,
TIED UP DISHES FOR NEIGHBORS IN NEED,
AND FOR MEN OUT IN THE FIELD TO SEED.
THEY DRIED DISHES FROM PAN, NOT RACK
THAT ABSORBENT, HANDY FLOUR SACK!

WE POLISHED AND CLEANED STOVE AND TABLE,
SCOURED AND SCRUBBED FROM CELLAR TO GABLE,
WE DUSTED THE BUREAU AND OAK BED POST,
MADE COSTUMES FOR OCTOBER (A SCARY GHOST)
AND A PARACHUTE FOR A CAT NAMED JACK.
FROM THAT LOWLY, USEFUL OLD FLOUR SACK!

SO NOW MY FRIENDS, WHEN THEY ASK YOU
AS CURIOUS YOUNGSTERS OFTEN DO,
‘BEFORE PLASTIC WRAP, ELMERS GLUE
AND PAPER TOWELS, WHAT DID YOU DO?’
TELL THEM LOUDLY AND WITH PRIDE DON’T LACK,
‘GRANDMOTHER HAD THAT WONDERFUL FLOUR SACK!’

I eventually elected to bring a new crochet project, a shirt I wanted to embroider and a pattern and materials for a skirt.  So in went my yarn, my box of all-purpose crafting goodies and tools that I like to carry with me, and a bag of stuff to take to my Grandmother.  Have I mentioned that yarn is bulky?  Yes indeed, Jeff did laugh at me stuffing balls of yarn into an overstuffed suitcase.  I also got rather cross when I couldn’t find my small scissors.

The skirt pattern I took was one I purchased a number of years ago.  I will publish the fruits of that labor soon enough (when it’s entirely done, I have to make adjustments).  I wanted to reap the benefits of my grandmother’s years of sewing expertise.  I mean, I can probably read a pattern, but there’s a lot more to patterns than the reading of them, although I did struggle with the quite irritating waistband of the skirt that I just couldn’t make sense of.  Plus with patterns there’s mostly the fitting of them.  Standard patterns aren’t exactly drawn to fit the Everyday Woman.  Or at least not this one.  I needed help.

I also took a bit embroidery as a nice little set of hand-work to do, but I really didn’t get much done on it.  The shirt needs some adjustment to fit properly to begin with.  Why can’t manufacturers EVER put in bust darts, I ask?  Almost every shirt could benefit from them, but they’re never added.  Anyway, this is a summer shirt, and it’s October, so it predictably didn’t hold my attention.

My crochet project got a lot accomplished by the end of the week.  I’m kind of impressed.  I’ll show you that soon, too.  I’d have thought I’d have gotten less done, because it’s not exactly bulky yarn and it’s only crocheted in half-double-crochet (a denser fabric, thus requiring more stitches and yarn), but I really kept at it.

As you can tell, though, I had a pretty good time just pointing the camera lens out my window on the train.  I’m fascinated by all the things you can see on a train - it’s not always the most picturesque way to travel, but you learn a lot about the places you go through when you travel that way.  I find you learn more about the ways that people actually earn their bread and butter, the things people do on a daily basis and how they live.  Of course, you see a whole lot of train yards, too.

If you’ve ever taken Amtrak from Washington, DC to New York City, you know just how ugly places can get.  Elizabeth, New Jersey by train is one of the most godawful places on the face of the planet.  It’s dirty, and sooty, and it smells funny, and you just know that they only reason the place doesn’t fall apart is that it’s being held together by its own grit.  But in other places you just see the industry they have, which is interesting and not always too gritty - agriculture, dirt and rocks, the rivers and highways, steel melting, petroleum refining, and who knows what else that I didn’t even recognize.

I had a great time on my 11 days of freedom and leisure.  I love the Midwest - I love my family, and their way of life up there, and the first days of crisp weather and fall, and getting out of a city into pasture and fields.  I was lucky to be able to go to the harvest festival they call God’s Portion Day in the town of 300 people that I’ve been visiting all my life, and see old friends and extended relatives.  It was hard, hard, hard to come back to the heat and the city and work and getting up at 6:15 to go run at the gym.  ARGH, I tell you.

I was entranced with the textures and shapes I saw on my 28-hour train rides from Austin to Chicago, and I hope you enjoy them as well.  I talked about them more on Flickr, if you’re interested.

On to the main event, my lovely Halloween goodies for the Very Vintage Halloween Swap from my swap partner Claudia and Mr. Puffy, her adorable beagle.  Here’s a picture of all the goodies first, which ranged from fairies to stamps and goodies and candy to my very own hand-knit kitty cloth.

There were two main elements to this, the Mark Roberts pumpkin fairy.  These collectible fairies are a favorite of my swap partner’s, and this little guy is really incredible.  I’m going to embarrass him by posting a picture of his legs, because I was really quite font of his little shoes and tights.  He has lovely glittery wings and is really a perfect fairy.  I have begun quite a little collection of pumpkins, and this makes a grand addition.  He will get a place of honor.  Just look at that hat!

The other main element to my package was this great cat dishcloth.  This was hand-knit by my swap partner, and it is lovely and very soft.  The cat is rendered in duplicate stitch, and you can read all about it and even get the instructions on Claudia’s blog.  It is knit in Kollage Hope Chunky cotton worsted (color is Eclipse) with cat stitching in Noro - Silk Garden (color No. 84).  Many of you will remember my earlier summer trauma over losing my kitty, so you know how much I appreciated the inclusion of a cat!!

There were other delightful surprises as well.  There was a Halloween pen (which is not pictured because it’s already at my office, in use.  I love funky pens), some great decals for windows and other things you might want to turn Halloween-ish, and a great witch to add to my Pez dispenser collection (Pez dispensers are important, people).

Plus there’s that stamp you see of a spoooky haunted house. That is really the cutest stamp.  I suppose it would be wrong to take it to work and stamp all my thank-you correspondence to donors with it?  Rats.

I tell you, I just love getting fun stuff in the mail. Claudia hit upon some of my favorite things with her items, and so this was one of those really good swaps where you open your package and you feel like Christmas came early.

Claudia’s post (from yesterday, the RIGHT day to post) included her plans for Halloween, including a nice glass of port and a good Halloween movie (Beetlejuice!!).  I think she sounds like she has everything worked out pretty well, don’t you?

Well, onto another strenuous vacation day.  I will see about more internetting, but it’s a sketchy proposition!

I find trains very conducive to crafting - I have spent a good 4 hours crocheting and embroidering today and more time reading and sleeping.. I am also lucky to be married to a guy who’s good with tech, so we’re outfitted with movies, TV, portable Internet and video games. Pretty much every massive time-waster invented by modern America.

Wow, the train just did something fairly stomach churning. Next stop is maybe Arkadelphia or something. Happily I don’t have to care where I am because someone else is driving and in a couple of hours after some strenuous Angel-watching and a glass of wine, I will be going to sleep!

Actually, truth is that in addition to the welcome respite traveling this way offers, I find that my most rewarding trips aren’t just about destination. I’d hate to miss all the stuff between point A and point B, which is at least as interesting as the two endpoints. I just like to stop and smell all the flowers.

This was almost my first experiment with applique. I’ve been reading up on technique. Seems like it worked. Sometimes the way I learn things is not by doing. I read up about something, I think about a lot, work it out in my mind, mull over the angles for weeks. Then I’m ready, and my fingers do what my brain spent all those hours thinking about.

My trademark swirls are in there, but I think they make sense, since they represent the sky. Each different element has different colors and patterns of stitchery down to different stitch lengths, to try to make each element represent the actual thing it’s depicting in more than one way.  It worked pretty well, and in fact I ended up enjoying the back almost as much as the front, so I left it uncovered.

The most interesting part of this for me, once it was done, was not the way it looks, though I tried to create an agreeable selection of fabrics and patterns. It was the way it feels. It has a lot of texture. Maybe it was just me doing all the sewing, arguing with and smoothing the fabric.  The leaves and pumpkin are lined with felt before appliqueing them on for added depth, and the stitching just adds to it. It was a dense, compact work, with silvery bits of thread running everywhere.

I chose this motif for a Halloween swap because Halloween is a harvest festival to me, in fact a major one. It’s not all ghosts and goblins at its root. And harvest reminds me of Iowa where my family is from, and the fields and cool air of this season. Did I mention next week’s vacation is to Iowa?

I do believe I’m going to make another one of these. Maybe November will be good inspiration?

The (ir)relevant details of the project:  linen, cotton quilting fabric, felt, silk and cotton embroidery thread, cotton quilting thread, fleece, cotton bias tape.  Machine applique, hand-quilting/embroidery.  Freehand drawing/piecing of my own design.

After a Sunday morning hike that did NOT go awry, we felt some food preparation was in order.  So we threw on our favorite aprons (hehe) and got busy making a mess.  I think we overdid it.  We made enough food for the whole week, and then some. I’ve been on a real food kick lately.  We scaled back our vegetable deliveries to every other week because we were just drowning in okra and eggplant and things, but we still have found ourselves eating at home and generally having more fun with eating.

I’ve had to be pretty creative sometimes, doing new things with the same ingredients, making stuff up as I go along.  It’s a new experience for this suburban kid to encounter a surplus of seasonal foods instead of the grocery store’s “sameness of variety.”  It’s working out, and as you can see below, our vegetable deliveries have gotten to be exciting for the whole family, not just for Jeff and I.

At some point in the last few months the deliveries of local produce, the hiking, and the unexpected vegetarian turn must have gotten to us.  We apparently decided that packaged food companies just weren’t doing it right, and that we’d just have to start make things ourselves. For example, Jeff has now taken to making his own energy/protein bars from a recipe based on Alton Brown’s protein bars.  Meanwhile, I wanted a salty snack that wasn’t Doritos, so I baked some cajun-flavored garbanzo beans.  Kind of like the ones here, but no pistachios and cajun-oriented.  TASTY.

We also made the buttnernut squash and sweet potato soup, pico de gallo and a version of my favorite charro beans, rosemary potatoes and some interesting gluten-free bread.  The bread was yeasty and it rose! (this is a major accomplishment for me).  And maybe we made something else, I can’t remember anymore.  I remember I cut up a lot of vegetables, and the onions were very strong, and that the liquid for the bread just wouldn’t get up to room temperature.

Kind of amazed at all the cooking we’ve done lately, really.  Stuffed squash, pizzas with feta and basil, every squash-and-zucchini dish imaginable, and a lot of stuff with pretty brown eggs and lovely berries.  Summer may be long and hot, but at least it grows a lot of nice pretty green stuff.

In other news, I have received my swap partner’s package and she’s received mine.  I love getting packages, and this one was full of fun stuff, although the swap rules are that I can’t show you what I got until October 8.  But I can show you what I made for her, which was such fun!  I’ll do that tomorrow