Umm, guys... there is a whole bed here

When ever I block anything, no matter where I put it, the cats seem to find it. Here they are snug as bugs in the rug, ignoring the rest of the big comfy bed. They'd rather sleep on pins, apparently. I wonder what the draw is? This yarn is alpaca/wool and when it gets wet, it does have quite a strong animally smell that maybe they're attracted to. Or maybe they just need to initiate the new object into their lives. Whatever the reason, I'm kind of pleased to see them cuddled together rather than chasing each other around fighting, even if it is all over my knitting! Make knitting not War!

Louis like to 'claim' other new surfaces as well, see. I moved these out for one minute!

Kids

The other day I took some photos of the kids playing hopscotch. The light was fading, so I put my flash on really low. I love the look of these action shots it's like they should be in a skater magazine! More on my flckr page!!

Desk

After much messy, messy, jumbled boards for so long... I decide to clean these up so they'd actually be inspirational again!


a paper cutout of me from one of the ladies at the Christmas craft party and my 1920's hosiery box. (the stockings are just as beautiful!!)

This great candid shot is from 1912! I love it because it shows a large group of young people having a picnic in Blue Hill Maine. Usually photos from this time are so posed and I love that the kids are goofing around! Some great red buttons and a drawing of muscle tissue from a gal I met in Montreal.


A tree, tree

Knitting swatches & porcelain cowboys


Shirt, Shoes and Computer required!

Today Eleanor, Clarissa and I went to the coffee shop for some bagels. We do this often and I find myself constantly hushing them. Why? Because everyone there is on their darn computer... doing very important work I'm sure, that must take up every table in the joint. What is the deal? Every table tangled with wires and empty mugs? It makes me feel guilty for having a conversation! I think from now on, if I want to sing, I'll sing. If the kids want to dance, they can dance! If we want to sit together and laugh and giggle and have um.... human interactions... we're going to!

Walking Home...

Growing up I lived very close to my schools and in Jr. High and High school there wasn't even a bus to ride home if I wanted to. Although I didn't really appreciate it at the time, this provided me with a lot of freedom and responsibility (just think of all the trouble I could have been getting into!) because whenever I didn't have an after school practice or dance, I walked home.

In Jr. High my route led me up the small hill past the old Tannery, past the back parking lot of Ripley & Fletchers car dealership and carefully across Rt. 26 into the McLaughlin Gardens. There I'd sneak over the back stone wall and climb up the path through the woods headed to my dead end street. I always welcomed the open gate which gave me permission to go this way, since it was infinitely nicer than taking the road.

In High School, when I wasn't scoring a ride with my friend and her brother whose best friend apparently had a crush on me, I also walked home. This journey started with a long trek down the main drag of Rt. 26, then across the Woolworth parking lot. A six step climb through a patch of woods lead to another parking lot, this time of the place where I had girl scouts in elementary school. Then I'd scoot up the hill past Kim Davidson's house, whose mom had been one of my troupe leaders and if I dared, cut through the McCarthy's yard. All I had to do was speedily jump their stone wall and I was safe- home- but I pretty much always chickened out.

I can safely say, I love walking home. When the idea occurred to me today after dropping a pal off at the Fung Wah bus station, I seized it. I decided, since it was right there, to walk home over the Manhattan bridge.

The Brooklyn Bridge, as you might imagine, is a lovely walk. It's wooden pedestrian walkway rises high above the traffic in the center of the bridge, giving you an unobstructed view of the whole shebang: lower Manhattan, upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Statue of Liberty, you name it. It's stone pylons are completely awe inspiring in and of themselves. My first walk home over this bridge was quite transforming, in fact it inspired me to design Brooklyn Bridge Scarf for Son of Stitch N' Bitch (left).

The Manhattan Bridge, which opened in 1909, 26 years after the Brooklyn Bridge, is a different story. It's pedestrian pathway runs along the harbor side even with traffic and trains. Walking across it is gritty, loud, wobbly, distracting, desolate and dark. I highly recommend it.

As you embark on the path (see right) you have the unusual vantage point of being at the same level as the tops of nearby buildings. When on earth do you get to be outside, walking alongside the tops of buildings? You're camouflaged enough by the wire fence to really stop and gawk, taking inventory of plants on windowsills or undies drying on the fire escape. It feels like you're able to notice architectural details that might not have been paid attention to since their original construction and there's something incredibly serene about seeing a few scraggly wild grasses growing out of a chimney, with the towers of Wall Street in the background.

I stopped, for maybe fifteen minutes, to watch a flock of about sixty seagulls, circling and circling for no apparent reason. Compared to the grimy brick projects lined up as a backdrop, their creamy white bodies rivaled the unspoiled effect of an unglazed batch of porcelain. The flock would coast along, starting with huge oval loops at roof height that descended into consecutively smaller loops that took them down to street level. Hovering then, as if caught in a burst of steam from the sewer, they would wait until the last moment possible before flapping awkwardly and cycling themselves back up. Why they were doing this, creating this cyclone, I can't even begin to guess, but it was utterly mesmerizing. I admired them for quite sometime, until suddenly, all but two birds remained. Fairly quickly though, the pair decided to cast their spell elsewhere and I returned to my own migratory path.


In the middle of the bridge I had a very child like desire to throw something into the water. I just really needed to see if a small stone would make a splash or not. It would, I discovered after several tries and much smashing my face into the wire fence, in fact, make a decent splash.

Crossing over to Brooklyn was kind of strange. The bridge practically butts up against the Watchtower complex, a series of maybe four or five ominous looking buildings with covered bridges connecting them. Apparently the Jehovah's wittness' made this area their world head quarters in 1909, the same year the Manhattan bridge opened, but this building was built in the forties. I'm not sure what the deal is here really, but from the bridge you can spy in through the widows to see row after row of numbered cases. Archives, I assume? I hope.

My path continued through the MetroTech center, where I enjoyed some interesting public art installations. My favorite was by Tony Feher, who happens to be the first artist I 'discovered' on my own, loved and excitedly wrote about in college one time. When I saw this today I didn't know it was his, yet it reminded me of him.

Tony Feher's A Little Bird told Me
at the MetroTech Center in Brooklyn

Feher's bird-like habit of collecting of found materials, is particularly suited to this arboreal habitat. At first we see trash where say, a nest might be and in our exploration of that trash, discover the overlooked beauty of a plain old plastic bottle. Filled with a hot pink liquid that defines creases and baubles, the bottles stand out against the dark brown bark of the tree. Each clump of bottles hangs, discarded, like a pair of old sneakers tossed up on a telephone wire. And just like the sacrificed shoes, these everyday objects are suddenly of more cultural merit to us simply for being where they are.

I continued on and reached the massive stair case of Fort Greene Park. In the disappearing light, the place seemed more like a ruin and I, alone to unearth it's treasures. It was at this point that my thought process began to change. Before I had been walking in all new territory, places I had never stepped. But once at the top of the stairs, having tickled the fringe of my home turf, it was no longer about discovery and curiosity, but of relishing. Sounds became more dear: the father encouraging his sons in their game of football, the crumble from a child peddling his plastic wheeled tricycle, the thud thud of a passing jogger. Even the constant city background hum, made up of equal parts cars, trains, sirens and the clattering of dishes and silverware, seemed comforting. From this point on it was familiar. I was really walking home.

On the bridge I had this awestruck pause. I gazed out at the familiar skyline, which for some reason I was obsessed with drawing as a child growing up in Maine and said "I live here. I really live here." It always kind of baffles and shocks me that I could find a sense of home in the same place as millions of other people. My epiphany in the park was similar, but the sense of home much stronger. Why? Was it the proximity to my actual place of residence? The fact that I've been there a lot more times that the Manhattan bridge? Or was it because I knew exactly what lay ahead of me?

Standing in the park I have an instinctual sense of how much time it would take to walk home. I know this because I've done it, many times, laying my migratory path so to speak. Though, I couldn't tell you how many minutes, seconds or blocks it is off the top of my head. I just know that reaching that landmark changed my sense of time internally. It makes me wonder what birds think about as their biology drives them to relocate. Do they feel a sense of excitement, like I do, when they reach a familiar landmark and know they're close? My sense of home is typically wrapped up in towels and sheets, nice showers and good cooking. It's nice to be reminded that it may be a bit more biological than that.


Drawing this morning

Sometimes I really enjoy the drawing. Even though I don't consider myself to be too good at it, I generally like the way things come out. Without intending to, people's drawings typically have they're own sort of 'handwriting' don't you think? My favorite its to make the most of one piece of paper, but I usually can't draw things right up close to each other (I need a certain amount of space...) so I'll cut each drawing out. Then I have all these little bits of paper to fill in with drawings! The BEST! I have a whole envelope of them. Maybe I should have a show someday.


I totally resort to the draw with pencil, trace with pen and then erase technique. I can never think far enough in advance to get my lines in order otherwise.

My new intern

Today dear Eleanor came over to my house and I noticed that she was really interested in my ball winder. I decided to show her how it works and after one skein she was totally hooked and kept going and going.

I think she rolled up 9 skeins for me. She probably would have done more, but i kinda ran out!


New pillows 2!

At Kj's request I'm showing the before ugly- came-with-the-couch-pillow:

Then these are the finished pillows I made last night. The inspiration came from the combo of two things... that for a long time I've REALLY needed nice new pillows and that after dance rehearsal and brunch with friends I just felt like a quick jaunt across town to buy fabric.

Sometimes you just have to do a simple project. Something easy that you know you can finish in a short period of time, just to remind yourself that you still can. That you still know how to use that sewing machine and turn some flat rectangles of fabric into something infinitely cuter than what came with your couch and have been settling for over a year.

The seams are loose (thank you broken sewing machine) and nothings perfectly square, but the job is done and I am pleased.





New pillows!

Today, out of the blue , I decided I finally needed to recover the pillows on my couch! Here's the fabric that I got at Purl Patchwork :



The bottom one is a super beautiful brown/black stripe from a Japanese company. It's just gorgeous and modern but also reminds me of homespun you'd find in a country store. I managed to whip up four simple pillow covers before the Oscars were over, I'll post a photo tomorrow in daylight.

Warning you, they're pretty basic... my sewing skills are limited and I didn't have a rotary cutter, so I improvised my straight lines using the wooden floor boards as guides. I figured, close enough for me! I've always been a 'settler' when it comes to sewing anyway. If it's not my measurement and cutting, it's a wonky seam from the sewing machine and somethings bound to go awry! They should hold up for a bit I think.

Betty Bryant: August 4, 1929 - January 16, 2008

Several weeks ago I lost my grandmother, Betty, and have since been trying to cope, recover, believe it, honor her and most importantly...grieve.

Why is grief so difficult? I get the whole sad part and I figured I was ok with that stuff, but when my mom called to tell me Gram had passed, I just went on with my day. Even at the time, it felt really wrong to do that because it totally downplayed her importance to me. But I was so far away and the things my mom was talking to me about: funeral plans, services, what the nurses said... became a nuisance and I could not deal. What bothered me most was that at that time, the hour before I was to go start babysitting, the only memory I could come up with was sitting at Grams kitchen table playing cards with her.

"Were you close?" people might ask.

Let me think....

Did we have heart to heart talks about the meaning of life? No.

Did we log hours and hours together playing cards? Yes.

In fact the running family tease was how she thought I was a genius because I always managed to win at the color matching memory card game we played. She told my Mom that I must be really something to hardly make a mistake and my mom of course pointed out that I was cheating by seeing the colors reflected on the shiny white surface of the table. Well, she thought that was just as smart since it tricked her.

I don't know why I think closeness with Grandma should equal Norman Rockwell pie baking and Thanksgiving Dinners. I mean, we spent a LOT of precious time together, sitting at that white enamel kitchen table playing games and watching soap operas. I don't remember a time when my gram walked without her walker, which made her a readily available babysitter for me. She was there, at her table, always, watching cars go by and sometimes picking up the phone to answer people's questions about fire permits. (My Grampa was the fire chief) For nearly twenty years after she was moved into the nursing home, her table remained in the same place, arranged just how she liked it, until the house was sold and torn down a couple of years ago.

I was so lucky to grow up with my grandparents living right down the street, within walking distance. They lived right on Main street, at the bottom of the hill to our house, so it was a natural gathering spot. On our way home, mom would always stop us in to say hi. Grams sisters Wilma, Colleen and Barbara who lived right in town too, would do the same. Whenever the "Chief's" car was parked outside, some fireman was bound to pop in as well. While tearing down the house was a family decision, it is still sad to make the drive home now and not see the familiar red house. Amazingly, my mom had the patience and stamina to empty out all of the precious objects, before the house was demolished. She saved a lot of great kitchen stuff just for me and I am so very, very happy to have it in my Brooklyn apartment.

I wanted to honor my Gram by posting all of the things of hers I use almost every day. I don't know how she truly felt about any of these things, but just the fact that they were hers means the world to me. I think of you Gram, every time I touch these.

For my sewing supplies

jewels and buttons
the best ice cream scoop ever!

mixing bowls

cereal bowls


dish towel and mixer

I remember these measuring cups clanking when we opened the cupboard! The pastry blender is awesome.

embroidery forms and crochet hooks

A slip and my favorite necklace... although Gram didn't know who the pictures were of. I asked her last summer when I visited. It's a big mystery.

January Blues

Dear January,

Bleak and freezing
I have little fun in you.
This year,
even the joy of lacing up my favorite tall boots
was nothing to lift my heavy heart.
Next year,
I think I'll meet you in the Bahamas.

Kim

Thoughts

In our 2002 commencement speech, my friend and fellow (and brilliant I might add) Bennington graduate Jen White listed a few of the things members of our class hoped to do one day. I remember her asking me this question and though I'm not quite sure of my wording, my answer went something like this: "To start/live/work/be involved in a crafting community." I may have even used the word commune! Um.... so now, each day my life gets closer and closer to this. At the time, I kind of tossed it off... which makes me wonder how often these 'tossed off' hopes and dreams are actually quite close to our hearts.

I want to make it happen.

Anyone want to join me????