I’ve never been wild about competitions, particularly Bardic competitions, because of a myriad of reasons.  We all do things differently; we have different styles and time-periods that interest us; we focus more or less on spoken or sung pieces; favor different vocal styles; and on and on and on.  I think I’ve participated in six as […]

So, this happened:  Mine is the penultimate piece.   It was interesting to be recorded.  Like many people, I had a hard time getting used to the sound of myself, but I think I’ve now messed with recordings enough now that I do indeed recognize my own voice at a remove. Everyone involved with this […]

As promised, video of Bruce Molksy playing at the Potomac Celtic Festival last weekend. His beautiful finger-style guitar rendition of his original tune “Brothers and Sisters:” And his fantastic clawhammer banjo and vocal for the traditional old-time classic “John Brown’s Dream:” Next time, I’ll try to try to bring the actual video camera, tons of […]

My period of mandatory silence is over.  I didn’t intend for it to spill over here onto the blog, but my desperate need to plant whenever it’s not raining, my new obsession with learning to build dry-stack walls, and some news I haven’t yet processed coalesced into me thinking a lot and saying little.  I […]

We spent the long wekend with dear friends in Canaan Valley, West Virginia.  We wandered around Blackwater Falls and the park surrounding it.  We’ve had unseasonably warm weather in the DC area over the last few weeks, but thankfully West Virginia is holding on to some winter.  I flirted with birches, like I do.   They flirted back. The […]

P is for Practice.  And here is my new baby.    I had a lot of options for this letter in the ABC Along: pottery, preachain, puttering, pastry . . . but then the new guitar showed up on Wednesday, and practice is again mandatory here at the Mean-Skutai Manse.  Picking up the guitar again […]

You thought I forgot all about measuring handsewing, didn’t you?  Nope–I’ve been sewing relatively little this year, but the preparations for Celtic summer camp were upon us and Bodwin reminded me that I should keep up with the big tally.  I hand-sewed the bindings on a couple of small quilts and have been doing lots […]

Last weekend, I went out west to visit with Two Sock Knitters, and another Sock Knitter, and a whole passel of contra dancers.  The University of Chicago hosted a fantastic dance weekend, complete with the fantastic bands Cosmic Otters and Nightingale, and the amazing callers Adina Gordon and George Marshall.  We went to tons of […]

I ended up scrambling to affix beads to the points of the Heather Ale sweater on the metro yesterday morning.  I was desperate to wear this thing, and a night’s rest gave every single beadless point the chance to curl right up.  I’m not entirely sure about these purple beads–I have clear ones in the […]

Friday night, we went with Square and Tara to see the Wiyos at the Lyceum.  Hot damn, that was a good show.  I knew I’d like the band as soon as I saw their name–they take their name from the Whyos, one of the most terrifying Irish gangs ever to stalk the streets of the […]