Not So Fancy Nancy

Evacuated from the fires, but home and ok now

This was the view from my backyard yesterday morning. It should have been a pure blue sky.

It got worse than this before it got better.

The land our house sits on burned 11 years ago in the Harmony Grove fire. That open space just behind our fence is surrounded by houses, but the high winds were carrying embers up to two miles, so any fire in the general area could have ignited it. The winds were so hard Sunday night and all day Monday and last night that some trees were snapped along the street and a neighbor’s patio table was smashed. Our poor tipu tree bent at 90 degrees in this photo (to the left of the curved wall) seems to have made it, but many of our trees are de-leafed.

We had a mandatory evacuation yesterday afternoon because our neighborhood backs onto the open land going toward Elfin Forest. In addition to the Witch fire covered in the news there was a fire called the Coronado Hills fire in San Marcos, which is upwind of us. I don’t think it was on the news much with so many other more dangerous and volatile situations, but the police closed this area and drove around with loud speakers telling everyone to evacuate. Some neighbors stayed, but because of the amount of ash falling and another night of winds coming, we didn’t want to have a middle of the night exit. We had lost cable and internet in the morning and we were feeling very cut off.

We had received a reverse 911 call around 6 am telling us to be ready for evacuation, so we had already packed the cars with photos and albums, quilts and knitting, artwork and other special things, papers and necessities, etc, awaiting the mandatory call. While it was hard to leave home, we did it with more than the clothes on our backs like so many people, so I’ve not been as worried. Notice that photo albums, quilts and knitting were in front of papers on that list - I did the papers first, but those crafty were the things closest to my heart! We felt lucky to have had so much time to plan.

We stayed with my SIL in OC last night. In OC it was very hard to get detailed news about SD because of all the fires in the OC and LA areas My husband returned this morning to find relatively clearer skies and the barriers into our neighborhood pushed aside. The girls and I followed this afternoon (and the two cats and dog – that was a fun ride!).

Because the Coronado Hills fire was 100% contained this morning at just 300 acres we’ve decided to stay, but of course can leave asap if required. The yard and walks are ashy, but the house was closed up to the winds before the fires got bad, so it’s pretty clean inside. I’m so thankful for our good fortune, but I have friends still evacuated and they're more in the line of the active fires than us. I used to live and work in Rancho Bernardo, so of course this all hits close to home. The areas of the Witch fire west of I-15 are very familiar to me. I used to drive along Del Dios Highway every day, so it’s been hard not to stay glued to the TV.

My husband is working from home because they’ve asked everyone that can to stay home, so I’m only getting to “borrow” the PC for a few minutes. The winds are only going to improve from here and the temperature is dropping from the record highs, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. My kids are off school for two weeks anyway (modified year-round) and now the house is in chaos, so you might not hear from me for a bit, but we're OK. Take care everyone. Our thoughts are with those who've lost their homes or don't know what they'll find.

Blue silk seduction and Funky Monkey quilting

I finished the top! No real mistakes yet, so I figured I better find a way to let the devil out. I got comments and emails about that Native American tradition of including a mistake --- one I've never had trouble honoring without effort. I did make one, but it's more in what I didn't do. I'll share next time.

These flowers were at their best over the weekend and a couple of blooms have already shattered, but I couldn't resist photographing them with my quilt top. All my roses are sending up end of the season one-offs, so these are the blooms from five different bushes. I thought of leaving them in the garden, but it was worth it to have the Sunday dinner table so adorned.

The Saturday mail kindly provided a weekend afternoon put-the-feet-up enticement. I love KF's books for the inspiration as much as the patterns. I always see a new way to use Rowan fabric patterns and color combinations and I go back to his books when I'm between projects to get ideas flowing. I really like this cover quilt. This simple box style is all over the quilting flickr groups right now and I love it.

Chevron Scarf is on the final rows. I'll have it blocked next time. Don't think I've got the full length, but it's long enough for my 5'2" self. Made fast work of this with so many appointments over the last two weeks. Eldest girl was doing a BMX move on her non-BMX bike and her teeth met the handlebars to the detriment of the teeth. Now that the fat lip is gone and the tissue has healed the endo has given it a conditionally positive report:  no root canal! Yippee! Apparently the nerve can take time to die, but so far it looks good. Now we have to get the gouges filled. Oh, the joys of motherhood.

While working on Chevron I was seduced by this Regal Silk by Artyarns. The color and sheen are simply amazing.

Several times over the last month I picked up Lacy Little Knits when visiting B&N. There are three or four lacy/sexy/lingerie themed knitting books out right now and this was the only one where I saw myself making anything from the book. I admire the mechanics of a knitted bustier, but it's not happening on my needles.

Schreier's patterns are generally soft shapes with open stitches. Many using the scribble technique I was first drawn to in Unexpected Knitting, Debbie New's book from a few years ago, and have always wanted to try it. I got this book for a couple of the sweater patterns, but am not ready to start yet another sweater right now. This simple wrap looked intriguing and fast and I already had the blue Kidsilk Haze in stash. I love the way the texture of the silk and silk/mohair work together. I wanted a solid scarf to go with patterned sweaters. I should point out that all of the patterns use her Artyarns fiber and the yarn cost of some of these designs will be high. I'm hoping to sub some Brooks Farms for at least one pattern, but i haven't done any serious work on that yet.

Back to quilting ... spent some quality time staring at my Flora quilt thinking about ways to quilt the top. All choices involve free-motion quilting, so I figured I'd better get with that program. Installed the darning foot on my machine for the first time Sunday and dropped those dogs. The best analogy for learning free-motion quilting is learning to drive a car. In the beginning you're constantly aware of your hands and feet - don't forget to turn the wheel ... ooops, too far ... press the petal ... ooops too hard ... nope, not hard enough ... now turn the wheel smoothly and press the petal at the perfect rate at the same time ... what??? I have to watch the road too??? relax? you must be kidding! Then one day you realize you're not even thinking about your hands and feet, which are finally working in perfect unison, and you can concentrate on the road.

I'm a fine driver, but I'm not there on the sewing machine yet. Still, I can see the light. I put in six hours at driver's ed yesterday. Got tired of playing with scraps and jumped on the freeway. With sewing the potential wreck is much less deadly, but my sore neck and shoulders would be gold to an ambulance chaser. Something tells me you're not supposed to quilt the entire top in one go. After meandering the blocks and swirling the border, I decided to play with the story blocks a little. No marking and no planning - kind of like a college road trip (to greatly stretch my driving metaphor). Below are some trip snapshots. The blue border around the story blocks is wash-n-fluff chenille. I'll show you how that comes out when I know myself.

    

The curse of perceived perfection

Have you ever been working on a project and realized it was going ... well ... perfectly? So perfectly that you became scared to touch it?

For a week I've ignored my Flora strips awaiting the final seaming.

Last Thursday evening after the first round of strip pairings was sewn, I was ironing the seams and chatting with my husband (who was giving me his most engaged uh huhs while staring at the PC). I looked down and saw just how darned well I'd sewn the narrow strips. This pleased me greatly as I've been working hard to improve my 1/4 inch seaming. I glowed in my little happiness for a bit, then went to bed. Fully intended to get up the next day and move forward, but I've been stuck. All those beautiful seams could go to hell from here. Had to wait a bit and glance guiltily at the strips this whole week to work up my nerve.

Com'mon, we've all done it - there's no use denying it. We've all totally screwed up something perfect. The freaky moment when the rotary cutter is possessed and your finished quilt top is carved. The dropped stitch that runs for its life through hours and hours of lacework. I still clearly remember a moment from my late teens that taught me about hubris. I was hungry and darned excited about a plate of pasta I'd made all by myself. Cooking was never my forte, so this start to finish creation was a big deal and I was feeling quite proud. Plate and fork in hand, I swung around quickly from the counter to the table and the entire pile of spaghetti & tomato sauce demonstrated Newton's first law as I and the plate stopped, but it didn't. Properly humbled, I scooped it up off the floor looking much worse after its flight. No, I didn't die. 10 second rule.

Well, as you can see, I've overcome my nerves and started joining again today. All is well, but the next potential crisis looms:  quilting. In the meantime, my roses are quietly supporting my color choices.

Notice the photo above of the strips on the towel rack? Seems like a rational thing doesn't it? The ironing board sits just three feet from the guest bath and that rack is usually empty. So why did it take me almost TWO YEARS to notice it was the perfect spot for just ironed patchwork, all that time draping my ironed patchwork bits on the back of the office chair or sofa where half the time a visiting child/dog/husband sat on them? Sometimes I feel mentally deficient.

Whenever I get too excited about a crafty perfection I walk outside so Mother Nature can knock me soundly on my all too human arse.

The butterfly bush is living up to its name.

This bee is one of literally 30+ swarming over the basil at any given moment. The bush gives off a beautiful hum all day. I have a neighbor who's scared of bees, something I honestly can't fathom. They don't want me - they want my flowers. Here's how big this basil bush has gotten. Sorry for the overly bright light, this is the only photo where I managed to get Cami to sit nicely for a size reference.She wanted to play ball and couldn't figure out what was so special about that spot. That orange plant is sunset agastache. I try to go out at least once every day and listen to that hum as my personal Om.

 

New knitting, dog beach & orange crush

The past month was a very hard month, so I'm happy to say I love October. Always have. Here in Southern CA October often brings the bluest skies, Santa Ana winds and warm ocean water. After mid-September Del Mar opens its beach to dogs again. That makes October Cami's favorite month too.

This weekend my husband took our youngest on a camping trip, so eldest and I had a tween version of a mommy & me weekend.

We were on the go:  Dog walks, chocolate chip pancakes at Honey's cafe, JoAnns for Halloween fabric, Dream Dinners (she helped), take-out Chinese, a sleepover (her), trying on clothes at J Jill with no one waiting for me and dog beach. Finished with brunch.

I've been craving Pannikin's steamed eggs with feta, tomatoes and basil and a bialy. Yes, I could easily make it at home, but I've been enjoying that plate at Pannikin's in La Jolla or Leucadia for 15 years and it always makes me think of happy times. Today was one of those times.

Small children are wonderful in countless ways, but I'm thrilled that my 10 year old can hang at the coffee shop now. Bodes well for future travel. We scored some old chairs in the side yard and put up our feet to relax with the worn out dog spralled on the grass. She was so tired she ignored the shop cat prowling around the lawn.

While we sat I knitted the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I've had the book since it was published, but a but I never thought about this scarf until I ran into photos of it while tooling around Ravelry. I'm up to about 15 inches now.

LOVE that site! Seeing so many images of this project by different people all at one time allowed me to analyze how various color combinations worked together and to think about what I wanted from the project. I decided that a subtle background and a more variegated ripple in earthy colors would please me.

I am pleased.

Both yarns are Koigu, but I can't find the bands. Probably bookmarking a pattern somewhere...

I've also finally cast on Lara in Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk.

Everything was fine and dandy until two weeks ago when I got to the third ball before I was even close to finished with the sleeve. No way were my 16 balls going to make it. Found a good price through an ebay BIN sale, but of course the lot was different. The yarn has arrived, but I'm still trying to decide how I'm going to integrate the two lots. I know I could switch out every two lines, but I don't want to carry the yarn up the side on a side-to-side knitted cardigan. I think I'll do all the ribbing in the new yarn to hide any shading differences.

That's the new on the left. The differences are only visible in certain light, but I know that kind of thing can be more noticeable when knitted up. We shall see.

Feminism and The Domestic Arts are NOT Mutually Exclusive

My guess is that many of you have Jane Brocket's Yarnstorm on your blog feed list. If not, you should certainly give it a read. She and I have never corresponded, so I can make no personal comment about her, but I share many of her interests and find her projects inspirational. On the whole she writes about her adventures in the "domestic arts" and books rather than her personal life, which is fine with me. I admire her choice to create a business model from her efforts and applaud her and other bloggers for their efforts in writing books. More power to them all. She's one of many blogs that uses the photo box set up (white boards and indirect bright lighting) to achieve consistent and consistently beautiful photographs. It would be extremely boring if all blogs looked the same, but I certainly appreciate that style of artful presentation done well.

She has a new book out that I've yet to see, so I"ll withhold comment until I do. What's interesting to me today is the review in a London Sunday paper and the ensuing, well, storm of comments both on the paper's site and Jane's blog. A wonderful democratizing effect of blogs and comment boards is that weak writing gets called out and eviscerated in real time. No waiting a week or month for a couple of letters to the editor to show up after you've forgotten the original story. Strong and opinionated writing can bring good comments too. I read Salon regularly and almost always look through the editor's picks of the comments to see other's viewpoints. Fast and public feedback is one way that the internet lives up to its hype.

The author of that review tries to equate one's enjoying the domestic arts - baking, sewing, knitting and gardening - to being anti-feminist. She also implies that these interests are the realm of the wealthy and pampered. Obviously, many women's meters went straight to red. My first thought was that her piece was so plainly stupid as to be below response; but then again, maybe not. I think it's great that so many took the time to write thoughtful comments to the Telegraph, potentially reaching a non-crafting audience with the news that Real Woman Knit. And they bake and garden and sew ... and have families and jobs and other pursuits. I keep thinking everyone got that memo, but then I get comments when I'm at the park knitting, or see that Grey's Anatomy rerun where everyone exclaims in a rather derogatory way about Meridith's knitting, and I know there's education to be done.

This blogging medium allows each of us as owner/CEO to determine the voice that suits us and the level of exposure we find comfortable. I read some blogs so filtered that I don't know where the writer lives or any details about their working or home life. Other blogs are literally public diaries. Most are in between, and all styles are OK with me if I enjoy the content. On the whole I think most of us with craft blogs focus on our creative endeavors while allowing natural intrusions of work and family life to filter into the text. (Oh, how much crafting could we get done without those pesky kids, husbands and/or bosses sucking up our time?) I enjoy Jane's odes to quince jam and Stephanie's odes to her family. I don't have to choose between them; I'll read both thank you very much.

I've read some vitriolic words from both craft bloggers and the uninitiated (like the Telegraph writer) about how some bloggers post about their perfect life. None of us live in Lake Wobegon (where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average) and I've yet to read a blogger who claims that as home. I think most of us post about our passions in the hopes of connecting with those who understand and appreciate our creations. All those gaps between posts are when we're busy with real life - the good, bad and in between. Personally, I write my blog to maintain adult connections regarding subjects that interest me and to entertain both you and myself. A photo of my muddy children may elicit (not illicit as I typed the first time - spell check only helps me to a point!) as passing smile whereas a pile of the same wet, muddy clothes forgotten in the laundry room basin for a week would not. That might be interesting if blog technology allowed for scratch-n-sniff, but I can guarantee it wouldn't make you smile. So I give you the kids and roses and not the mildewed clothes and compost heap. Writer's choice. Personally, I'll take Jane's tasteful and thoughtful blogging over a tell-all autobiography of someone's bad life choices any day.

To make the argument that by engaging in the domestic arts we've given up feminist ideals is intellectually flaccid. What's more feminist than having the choice to create as you desire, be it a post-modern political treatise or an heirloom quilt? What's more feminist than finding one's voice in an open medium? Isn't that what the movement was about? The freedom to be comfortable as women and to follow our interests, whatever they may be? I think we'd do much better to focus on women around the world without choices than to spend so much time picking at each other.

Why the flower shots? Well, I just couldn't resist prettying things up a bit. Yarn and fabric next time.