Spring is Sprung

Maureen reporting. Cape Ann is a riot of blooming flowers, aka, pollen producers. A lot of the trees have their grown-up dark green leaves and some still have yellow-green frills. They make a great backdrop for all the blossoms. There's a photo op around every corner, as all the tourists have discovered.

Saw beautiful flowers and herbs today when I was at Goose Cove Gardens in Gloucester to pick up some tomato plants for Leslie. A class from the nearby elementary school was there; the kids looked about 5th grade age. Each student was buying one plant, and one of the boys said, "Hee, hee, I got catnip" just as though he'd scored something illegal.

So how do you like the picture? I am finally learning how to use Leslie's digital camera and Photoshop Elements. This is Basket of Gold, or Goldentuft, or Aurinia saxatilis. I took the photo around 6:45 pm so that the sunlight would be slanting. I remember from my long-ago photo class that the best times for outdoor photos are very early morning (ha! not bloody likely for me) and late afternoon. My next challenge is to get pictures of the cats without them moving. Stay tuned!

Serious Motivation to Learn to Spin

The New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival was over the top for me this year for many reasons that I will go in to at another time. Now I just want to show this shawl that was on display in the building where the pot luck was hosted on Saturday night. I am seated, eating and zoning out after wonderful but long day. My mind is compiling multiple lists of things I need to do for future shows. I am talking stuff like things I should have taken along, designs should have made more of and the ever present list of reasons for not eating more of the cookies in the booth around the corner despite the fact that they are the best I have ever eaten. Next year, I dare you to try the ginger cookies and tell me that better ones exist at ( a location you can name and from where you can supply a sample.) In that spacey state I see the above shawl hanging on the wall across the room. Like Tony in the dance scene from West Side Story I walk to the shawl and stand transfixed. A handwritten note next to it expains that it was the result of misreading a pattern and is signed by the maker, Ingrid Bird. Back at the table I wonder aloud about the maker only to find that she is seated at the table. In that off-handed way that the truly gifted have she explains what she did to make it. I am now determined to try/do this myself.

Thanks, Ingrid!

Blog On!

Leslie

Report from a Curmudgeon

Yeah, I'm the one that reported in March that spring was coming, tra la, tra la. Now I remember why I hate spring:

1. The flowers. I'll have sinus headaches from pollen until July, then a couple of weeks off and the goldenrod starts. One of Leslie's friends brought in a bouquet of forsythia the other day, and everyone else said, "How lovely." I thought, "Oh, great. A snot producer." One of the cats ate the blossoms like they were Pringles and then puked under my bed, ruining a beloved Lord Peter Whimsey paperback that had been bedtime reading. I hate the *&^ flowers.
2. Ticks. My poor old Joon was diagnosed with Lyme disease three weeks ago and is on a course of antibiotics. She feels much better and wants to go for walks every day; when a bull terrier wants to go for a walk, you darned well better go. And every day when I bring her home, I'm picking more ticks off her. Not only are they gross, I fear for her health. Yeah, I hate the *&^ ticks.
3. Rising gas prices. $3.00 a gallon on Cape Ann and rising every 15 minutes. So now those urban legend emails are recycling about boycotting one or more specific gas brands. See snopes.com for why this doesn't work. The only way to spend less on gas is to buy less. So get off your butts and walk more, America.
4. Tourists. Yeah, I know the local economy depends on them, and yes, it was a bad winter here. But for pity's sake, could they learn how to drive? One day recently, I was stuck behind a car with (who would have guessed?) Florida plates, doing FIVE miles an hour in a 30 mph zone. I could barely keep my car from stalling and of course, it being Rockport, it was a winding road with no passing and no alternative route. Then last night, as I was doing 30 in a 30 on another winding road with no passing, I was passed by a Jeep with out-of-state plates doing at least 40 and then accelerating once they were past me. Oh, and the library parking lot in Rockport? The one that's posted for residents using the library only? Wonder why one Sunday recently I saw cars there from Utah and New Hampshire? Wow, our little library must be nationally famous. *&^*^ tourists.

Maureen who is honking like Felix Unger with another sinus headache

A Day With A Yarn Over Marblehead

Knitting shops, more than any other business, tend to have the feeling of being in a friend's living room, and Jean Tierney's yarn shop, A Yarn Over Marblehead is a perfect example of that experience. It takes more than the usual comfy couch and ready tea pot to set that mood. What is immediately obvious is Jean's love of knitting; the doing of it, sharing of it and teaching of it.

Upon my (late) arrival I was warmly greeted by Jean and several friends/customers. There is an easy flow to the conversation as the afternoon progresses. One woman is working on a sweater in two colors with "I" cording. The pattern is complicated and she has opted to shape via darts that are so perfectly charted that I could see no interruption in the design. Another woman leaves and returns with her teen aged daughters who make themselves comfortable around the table as they use the wire I brought and the tools to easily fashion earrings.

Twice I hear Jean answer the phone and give lengthy advice about projects. That she truly cares about resolving their problems is evident. With that kind of support could knit those projects I wistfully look at now.

Blog On!

Leslie

A Blog About Litter Boxes?!

Is there anyone among us who does not think that they have discovered a better/best way to do something? If hefty credentials in the chosen field give weight to an "opinion", I would like to begin by stating that I have five cats. I think that equates to a PHD in litterboxocolgy.
Store bought litter has two inescapable problems: the cost and the tracking throughout the house. Old newspaper eliminates both issues (not an intentional pun). Use one section unfolded so that one page at a time shows on the bottom of the litter box. Place a second folded section on the bottom. Keep some folded sections nearby and add them on top if you want later. To change all you need to do is roll the long bottom section starting from the exposed and still clean top of the page. It takes seconds and costs nothing.
So if this blog is not up to the usual meaty, intelligent discourse you expect form me be glad I did not include pictures.
Blog On!
Leslie

Teach, Be Taught and Reminded

Remember, this teaching concept is pretty new to me. Unlike the one on one situation in my studio, the shawl pin workshops are taught in yarns shops, community buildings or, as this one was, a private school. I start by saying that although it is billed as a shawl pin workshop you can make anything you want. I do a simple demonstration detailing simple forging, bending and finishing techniques then I switch into hovercraft mode to be on hand for any questions. Susan Levine, my high school boyfriend, Ben's sister taught me this way when I was about 19. Today I have a studio full of tools, but in watching a new student working through the concept of making metal do their bidding using just a few simple tools, I remember all the feelings of wonder I had. I miss the simplicity of that process.

I knew Anne from our days at Curves. We had spoken occasionally and always with a shared style of directness and honesty. I didn't know she worked at the school where the class was being held. I did know she wove beautiful baskets because we had both shown our work at the annual Annisquam Art and Craft Show. At first she asked a few questions and I remember doing another quick design. I don't think she had a goal to make anything specific. She picked up some pliers and some wire and started making a spiral. I love that shape as it stands for growth and change, two things I am wanting for myself. She completed one and then decided to try a different metal in a different gauge. Somewhere along the process the elements were linked together and leather chord added. The end result was this beautiful necklace.

With independent study I "show and tell" and they go home and work on their own. I miss being witness to the "Ah Ha" moments like I saw with Anne. It is seeing that moment happen for someone else that is hard to describe. It reminded me of my own "Ah Ha" moments and also gave me that hard to define feeling that came from knowing I had helped someone else to experience it. What a gift!

Blog On,Leslie

The Secret is Out

Or the jig is up.

The last two days here have revealed Mother Nature's secret. She will deliver spring this year. The air is milder, the wind a mere breeze, the birdies are tweeting. (Leslie can identify individual bird calls. Me - I can tell a mourning dove coo from a woodpecker tapping, but that's about it.)

The days are longer, the light in the sky less gray and more mellow, the cove a bright turquoise and not gunmetal gray. The cats have new nap spots for daytime; instead of downstairs close to the propane stove, they're taking over my bed upstairs under the skylight where the sun now streams in. I'm finishing up wool projects and thinking longingly of crocheting with cotton or silk.

Yeah, I know we're supposed to have a storm tomorrow. That's just a conspiracy by the supermarkets and the TV weather reporters to sell bread and boost ratings.
- Maureen

PS. It's now Friday. The rain is coming down in sheets, our street is flooded a quarter of a mile away, and the wind is howling. I still maintain it's a SPRING storm as there is no snow. Hope springs eternal, as they say.
-M