The small linen quilt is finally finished.  It took about 20 minutes of quilting.  Sadly, it also took about 6o miles of driving, spread out into many, many trips to regional fabric stores.  I’m not proud of that.

For whatever reason, I started the quilting on this top using just the right green thread, ignoring the fact that said thread came on a small spool, and I just had the one, and that not all shops stock the stuff.    So I’ve spent far too much time looking for enough thread to finish this quilt over the last month or two.  And, being me, I bought lots of fabric and other thread while searching for the spool of thread I needed.

When I finally found the elusive thread, I bought all they had, which wasn’t actually that much.  I predict I will decide to use it again for a thread-intensive item, like the big linen quilt to follow this small one.  And then I will be stuck in this guilt-inducing, ludicrous situation again.  Sigh.

Still–pretty quilt!  I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but I’m glad I made it.

My head is full of ideas for other wonderful projects.  I spent yesterday at the American Craft Council show in Baltimore with a bunch of friends.  I bought nothing but some greeting cards, but I saw amazingly beautiful things.  Including the glass spinning wheel that caused such a buzz a while back. Ruadhan and I started asking the artist about spinning on it, learned that he’d only put commercially-produced string on it to make sure it would draw, and both cringed because we hadn’t any unspun fiber to force on him.  His aside of “They’re spinners . . .” to his booth-mate probably said all he needed to say.  Clearly, other spinners have met this talented artist and tried to either make a spinner out of him or weasel the wheel away from him.

D is for daffodil

I’m cheating a bit–these photos are from last year’s garden.  I’ve
been waiting for this year’s to bloom, but they’re just not going to be ready in time.

I love daffodils because I love Wales, and mythology, and spring.  It is that simple.

These plain old big yellow daffodils are iconic, and lovely, and necessary.  I’ve been naturalizing them for years, often in other people’s land.  Some people paint graffiti on things–I plant flowers and saplings about the neighborhood as a very Civil form of disobedience.

I’ve become increasingly enamored with cultivars like these over the last few years.  It started as a need to just extend daffodil season a bit, and now I’m unabashedly flirting with accepting those pale petals for their own beauty.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Look kids–I still read!  I know it’s been a while since I’ve reminded you of that.  Thinking about audio book reviews has messed with my regular paper book review thoughts a bit.

Right, so, my wonderful friend and co-blogger Jeanne has been recommending this book to me for years.  Years.  Over the last year or two I’ve been going out of my way to listen to my brilliant friends and family when they ask me to read a book.  Because they are brilliant, see, and they’re not trying to play tricks on me when they recommend books.  As evidenced by Cryptonomicon, and His Dark Materials, and this book, and god knows how many other fantastic books I learned about through smart people I knew.

Gaiman is pretty clearly a mythology buff, so I was intrigued from the start.  I don’t want to give much away, because this is certainly a plot-driven work, but the story revolves around a newly-released convict who gets wrapped up in some very strange work for a mysterious stranger who calls himself Mr. Wednesday.   That’s a clue I wish had been more oblique, but it might not be so obvious to all readers.  As the novel progresses, we learn about Shadow, his parents, his wife, human belief, and on and on.

I think the real genius of the book is displayed by how Gaiman blends and borrows from so many mythos and wraps them all up in a modern package.  There are a few things I wish the author had done differently–I don’t really need the “my woman ruined my life” trope anymore, thankyouverymuch.
So it’s not a perfect book, but it’s a very fun read, and it certainly strikes some lovely notes for myth-buffs like me.

I can’t drive on Valentine’s Day.  I’ve done it six times, and three of those times I’ve been in very bad car accidents.  I’m not a particularly superstitious person, but I can do basic math and those are horrible odds.  So I arranged to take today off.  I also arranged to have PT and my doctor-mandated allergy test Wednesday afternoon, thinking I could use today to recover from both–limping plus angry needle-marks all over one’s arms do not a good impression make, after all.  I woke up yesterday to learn that the ice storm we had the night before had frozen my car doors shut, so I ended up calling in sick rather than adding terrible ice-removal tasks to my extra-crappy commute and half day at work.  A morning of leisure to prep for my four hours of allergy tests and PT that afternoon seemed a good option.  Cue accidental mid-week break, complete with power outages, errands, bad roads, scratch and intradermal tests, and stability tests (though only for my leg–no one looked into my mental state).

Lo and behold, my immune system decided to switch it up on me.  When I was tested for allergies a few years ago, I tested positive for allergies to dust mites and dogs.  Yesterday, I learned I was no longer allergic to dogs, but was suddenly allergic to cats.  Now, I know dogs can be very very smart, and I’m sure Kayo and Scott have both used some amount of their mental prowess to entirely win me over to the dog side.  But such a drastic shift of allergies?  What the hell would cause that?  Are Yarrow and Speedwell really so different from Scath that their dander is poison to me when his wasn’t?  I’m so confused.

Apart from the running around, I’ve spent the last couple of days on a number of worthwhile projects.  Priority one: trying to help out our young pin oak, which was having a bad time with the ice.  Pin oaks hold their leaves through the winter, so suffer more than most deciduous trees in such  storms.

The whole tree was bent pretty dramatically towards the ground Wednesday morning, so I did some judicious ice-removal, while simultaneously convincing neighbors of my continuing insanity.  Thankfully the ice has melted and this young tree is standing up mostly straight again.

Priority two: prove I still knit.

This is the lace cardigan I’m making for the sake of a  beer label.   I asked Aes and Phalen to brew some heather ale, and they agreed, while encouraging me to perhaps grow hops and heather and also do a label shoot for them.  So I have to come up with a lovely outfit that seems to evoke heather, and maybe Scotland, and the like.  So, of course, greens and purples and knitted lace.  I need to speed up, I guess, since it’s not that long until heather season.  Though, being lace, the sweater is further along than it looks.  I’m using a free pattern from Elann, though I’m not using the second lace pattern for the sleeves, and I am going to make it longer than the original.  It’s worked from the top down with raglan shaping, so the alterations should be dead easy.

And Hedgerow Mitts:

(Ignore the bump over my wrist there–my friend Tara gave me a beautiful bracelet, and I can’t bring myself to take it off right now.)
I started off a second pair of Hedgerow socks in some lovely Fearless Fibers sockyarn I had on hand. But then thought it was silly to make another pair so similar to my first, noticed that I was going to have too few stitches, and accidentally designed some mitts.  It may be a special kind of laziness that makes a knitter design a new garment rather than start over upon realizing things aren’t working out.  The first mitt is finished, and the second one is humming along.  I really like how this stitch patterns feels as mitts–it is very stretchy, and reminds me of those arthritis-therapy gloves turned pretty.

Priority three: shop for books and eat great food with my Mom. Nuff said.

Priority four: cut big pieces of fabric into smaller pieces of fabric.  I’m trying to do more with red, because the red-loving people need bags too.

Priority five: Order flooring!  Tonight, we buy bamboo.  Lots and lots of bamboo.  I know some of you gals go for jewelry, flowers, and candy–and I certainly like all of those things–but this is the best V-Day plan ever.   We get to replace carpets that literally make me sick with environmentally-sound bamboo floors, thus increasing the value of the house and making dancing at home easier, while employing a dear friend to do the work, all the while financing the project with the settlement money from that terrible car accident Scott was in a few winters ago.  It’s like a home-improvement hat trick.

Please remind me I said that when we have to pack up everything we own so that the flooring can be installed, ok?

C is for Contra dance, and Clogging–two long-standing passions of mine (and two things that are downright tough to photograph).

I haven’t talked about either enough here on the blog, because I’ve been dealing with a few chronic injuries over the last several years, and it’s been keeping me off the dance floor more than I would like.  But I should talk about dance.  When someone asks me about myself, “folk dancer” is one of the first descriptors I blurt out.  I dance in my dreams.  I was in a clogging troupe in college, and it changed so much about my life I barely have words to describe it.  Teaching other people to dance is an avocation for me–so many of the dance forms I love can only be transmitted from dancer to dancer over years of interaction, and I hate to think any of the steps would fall out of the communal repertoire  So when I got the go-ahead from my physical therapist, I  checked out the Glen Echo dance schedule so I could start getting back on the floor and also take some photos for you crazy kids.

And that’s when I saw that my friend Morna was in town from Montana to call the Friday night dance, with the open band as her musicians.  Talk about serendipity.

The dance community at Glen Echo has been hoofing for decades, hosting two weekly contras and scads of other social dances year-round.  I started dancing there when I was 16 or 17–I can’t count the number of hours of fun I’ve had, or the steps and dances I’ve learned, or the fantastic bands and callers I’ve heard.

And as if getting to dance while one of my good friends is calling wasn’t good enough, Brooke and the kids were there too, as were my friends Joni and Adrian, and several other dancers I haven’t seen in far too long.

When I Contra dance, I clog.  When I first started hitting percussive licks on the floor of the Spanish Ballroom, I can’t say it was generally well-received.  Back in the day, clogging was seen as anathema to the soft, whooshing sound of feet gliding over the dance floor during a contra.  I was too loud for many of the dancers–my feet were loud, and my hair was unnaturally bright, and my clothes were just plain too strange.  Times have changed.  Lots of folks clog during the contras these days, and some guys wear skirts, and I no longer look like the punk rocker I still am at heart.

(Morna took pictures of my feet, and I took pictures of hers–it’s like yarn-porn, but with worn old dancing shoes)

In the spirit of me dancing more, and teaching other folks to clog (while also reducing allergens and improving the resale value of our house) we’re gearing up to remove all of the carpeting in our house and replace it with 1,400 square feet of bamboo.  Hot dog, I can’t wait.  Come for lessons, friends.  You just have to know how to walk and how to count to eight.

We’re currently without internet access at home, hence the lack of posting and emailing.  We had some big wind storms, and the power is back but the web still eludes us.  If you’re trying to email me, well, sorry.  I’ll try to catch up as best I can on someone’s DSL box.

Coming soon: proof of knitting on two separate projects, and my C post in the ABC along. 

Now go vote in the primaries, you Virginians and Marylanders, and whoever else is at the end of the primary queue with us.   

I spent last weekend with the other Preachainees, celebrating Imbolc the best way we know how–with forges.  Imbolc is Brigid’s holiday, and Brigid is all about creation and transformation, poetry and smithcraft.  We keep Imbolc really casual, because it’s generally very cold outside, which makes planning a camping event tough.  We converge on someone’s house, make way too much food, try to share some valuable skills, and have a good time without fretting about keeping everything historically accurate.   John the Farrier brought a couple of coal forges over to Sig and Macha’s farm and we got to work on some iron and hang out with horses, dogs, and friends.

Our iron workers this time around spanned the generations, from six years old to 80-ish.    I’m now going to just toss pictures into the post, because I can’t bear to leave many out.  Metalurgy is magic, and horses are very very cool, and I love these people.

And, as if that weren’t wonderful enough, I came home to find flowers from my husband and beautifully-dyed yarn from a friend.

I am a  very, very lucky girl, and I know it.

This is one of the best annual traditions in the blogosphere.   I’ve been thinking of ancient poetry and myth a lot lately, because I need to get to work on some new translations.   Etaine got all smarty-pants on us, like she does, and came up with a great name for our Bardic Trio.  Swag and website to come.  In the meantime–read, well, some of the oldest extant Celtic poetry there is. 

Song of Amergin
    by Amergin, Translated by Robert Graves

Just a little prod to remind folks to check out Books For Ears.  We’re listening to Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, James Fennimore Cooper, Vladimir Nabokov, Marilynne Robinson, Lemony Snicket, Jon Krakauer, Louise Erdrich . . .

Sallyjo suggested this great meme, and I was excited to participate: post a photo of a bookshelf that is revealing about your self.

Well, really, this is pretty darn easy for me.  I apologize for the flash-induced greasiness.  But there are the opening shelves of our library, and the beginning of my Celtic Studies collection.  It takes up, well, a lot more than these shelves.  On top–a bleached buck skull and an antique fiddle I can’t play.

First shelf: my songbook (I made it), a drinking horn (Shrew made it as a custom piece for me) and a bunch of mythology and a few large-format books.

Second shelf: a photo of me standing on top of a dolmen on the grounds of Blarney castle, an antler I picked up from the side of the PA turnpike, a Brigid’s Cross I brought home from Brú na Bóinne, a bobcat skull some dear friends us as a wedding present, and one of those fake distance signs.  Behind, more mythology and a bunch of history books.

Third shelf. a photo of me that you can’t make out, some travel, history, and poetry books, and the beginnings of my linguistics section.  Those small blue books are all Middle Welsh myths and poems I’ve translated, and the red ones are Old Irish.  The white book next to them rewired my brain a while back–it’s Thurneysen’s A grammar of Old Irish.  And it was the key to a language my brain needs like food.