Friday night, we got to see Old Crow Medicine Show and the Del McCoury Band and some other bands who are sure nice folks but not quite as good as Old Crow Medicine Show or the Del McCoury Band.  It was a good night.   I’ve been trying to see OCMS for years now.  I learned about them through sheer luck, fell hard, and then whimpered as each and every friend I introduced to the band’s music got to see them at amazing shows which, for one sad reason after another, we had to miss.  The curse is broken.  Granted, the show allowed too little time for those Crow boys to pick.  I may never get over that.  And the audience at the show didn’t appreciate the importance of some of the racier historic lyrics.  But damn those boys picked a hot set.  Before and after, I knitted on a sock and bopped away on the lawn at Wolf Trap.  I have no pictures though, because unlike the other patrons of Wolf Trap, I actually obeyed the sign and left my camera in the car.  In fact, it’s still there in Scott’s glove compartment.  It makes photographing my knitting more challenging than usual. 

Saturday, we skipped the traditional tubing with the pals, as is traditional for us since the sun makes me so very unhappy, but cruised out to Lovettesville for a good hang out and pot luck with the gang in the evening.  Several of whom didn’t know about the show at Wolf Trap, and may not forgiven us for neglecting to invite them except that they have hopes of receiving handmade felted cowboy hats with horns and/or antlers.  We got to watch the fireworks in the neighboring county in true ‘billie fashion, standing on the side of the road, adult beverages and/or barefoot children in hand.  I heart fireworks.

Sunday I decided it was time to be good and mad at the festival again, because my bone-headed spirit of volunteerism made me miss the Dukes playing on the Catoctin float so I could go to a board meeting.  On a holiday weekend.  I’m going to kick my own ass here in a second.

Deaaaammmmmmn, that makes me sad.  Fine fine, no tubing for me.  But it’s a rare thing to see my buddies play in a parade.  Grumble grumble.  I had to snag this photo from Chip, because if it isn’t challenging enough to take pictures from inside a glove box, it’s really really hard to take pictures when I’m in Upper Marlboro and the camera in in Fairfax and the subject is in Lovettesville.  From what I heard they sounded great.  Sigh. 

Right, no more whinging.  One month to make a slew of stuff and get to PA for two weeks of insanity and relaxation. 

I finished my Red Tail Hawk Socks.  I finished the fifth Season of the Sopranos.  I’m temporarily done with the laundry, the catbox is clean, I’m pages away from the end of Bury Me Standing.  I’m pretty much convinced that we already had the 2005 Potomac Celtic Festival, though I can barely believe it, which means that I have significantly less festival work to do day to day.   I have literally no work to do at work today and my guess is that no one else is coming to the office to entertain me, and yet I can’t leave until 2:00. 

What to start?  What to start!  I’m stuck at my desk clicking away on this box with hours to decide what to make next.  I think I’m going to be making something like this for Skutai this weekend.  And maybe a hat like this.  And I haven’t worked on the linen quilt since I finished the blocks . . . maybe I can find something pretty to sash them with when we go fabric shopping for the new del. 

Tonight we get to see the Del McCoury Band and Old Crow Medicine Show at Wolf Trap.  I tried to replace our lawn seats with actual seats, but apparently other people had the audacity to buy tickets to MY show.  The nerve.  So cross your fingers that the sky will hold out through Old Crow and Del for us.  I don’t mind leaving a show early, but I really mind lightning strikes during hot punk-grass sets. 

Is this thing on?

Some folks–a potter in particular–want hats, but we’ve hatted everyone bold enough to ask for a hat and careful enough to submit their head measurements. Which is sad, considering there are as yet only four bona-fide members of our shadowy tribe. Think of our safety, here: folks who knit large wool things in the DC summer seem susceptible to spontaneous combustion, but hats are small, so providing hat-data will likely keep mad hatters alive.

If you want a hat for yourself of one of your kin, post a comment with the measurements and suggestions for style,
color, etc. Wishing won’t necessarily make it so, but it certainly improves your chances a great deal. Please measure other people’s heads while you’re at it: we reward those who encourage rank sillyness and felted-mayhem handsomely. We would particularly like to know the following cranial circumferences: Dog, Richard, Ceallagh
(each has a design waiting in the wings, but no measurement on file–tragedy!). We also accept wool donations, as outlined mmmm, heaaah:
http://crazylanea.com/fiberarts/?cat=56 and additional design ideas.

Hey Bran, what happened to those sketches?

The Emerald Forest

Netflix recommended this movie to me because I liked Excalibur, so I took a chance.  The same writing and directing team made this film, which claims to be an adaptation of a true story of a man whose son is kidnapped by an Amazonian tribe and the man’s attempts to find and reclaim his son.  Powers Boothe plays the civil engineer father, and a young Charley Boorman (director John Boorman’s son, the young Modred from Excalibur, and Ewan McGregor’s co-rider in the Long Way Round) plays the adult son raised in Amazonia by the tribe who kidnapped him.  I have no idea how close to the truth any of the pseudo-anthropology is, but this film was a visual treat.  It is beautifully shot; traditional Amazonian ritual, dress, and culture seem to be treated with respect; and the central story makes it very difficult to see either white or Amazonian culture or Tommy’s birth or adoptive father as perfect and good.  It’s as if a National Geographic film was mixed up with a British action film.

As an aside, viewers will either be pleased, displeased, or indifferent over the amount of nudity in the film.  The Amazonian tribes-people are, as they should be, nearly maked through the film.  There are no graphic love scenes and the actors are all shot respectfully, but I know some folks are not interested in bringing two hours of nudity into their homes, no matter the subject matter.  Being neither a 12 year-old boy nor a prude, I forgot they were all naked pretty quickly.

And as another aside, this movie is kind of like The Wickerman, but on a different continent and without the nasty ending.  Yes yes, I know The Wickerman is an awful movie according to almost everyone who has seen it, but I love it so pipe down.  Folks who appreciate mythology and camp and skew towards primitivism and tree-hugging and dirt worshipping love the Wickerman and would probably love Emerald Forest.

During my trip to Maryland’s western shore, I learned that my friends and I can really go crazy with some glue and wire and pretty paper.  I did this on one cover:

And this on the other:

And then handed the book over to the masses of lasses, and picked up their books.  It was like kindergarten but with masters’ degrees and design experience abounding.   We drew and wrote little kind things for each other, all theoretically anonymous-like.  Though some I can puzzle out.  See, Tara sent a message that she really thinks it’s time for me to pick up my banjo again, but not a “Luka Brazzi sleeps with the fishes” kind of message.  How can I say no to this?

Look how perfectly claw-hammer-banjo like it is!  And those strings?  Those are real, honest-to-goodness wire.  I’m going to tune that open-backed beast up this afternoon, cuz, well, a hot lady-fiddler wants me to and I’m no dummy.  Just seeing this made me all misty, that she went to so much trouble because she really wants me there when they play together.  Fanning eyes here . . .

And one of the other girly-bootses, well, lookit what she did:

That writing there–it says “We weave a word-braid full of love and lore.”  We do, you know.  Hello, tearing up here. A little bit of the inside scoop: this meangrrl is a sap.  A grade-A, numero uno, crybaby with clogs on.  And these folks know all the buttons to push.  See here:

I’m totally losing it.  You like me.  You really like me! says the little Sally Field in my head.  And I’ve looked at all these before.  So beautiful and kind and thoughtful.  They can write short little things and make little pictures that together make me weep with joy and pride.  Sniff sniff . . . this one will sink me:

The writing is small and I literally can’t photograph this well because it makes me all snorfle-y when I look at it.  It says “sister” and “friend” in big words, and then that circle in the middle–that says Amy, and ringing it are the words “Center of the Circle–brings the World together.”

Seriously, you girls are killing me.  I know it’s like some sort of village game to make me cry like a baby, but you win every freaking time blowing nose ever-so-daintily. Hokay.  That’s enough.  I would show more, but I’m feeling all vulnerable all of the sudden.

I also learned that I love Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn, and that it loves me, and that we may just run off together and get married, you know, like you do with yarn.  Jumping for joy with yarn-love:

And calming the f- down:

The mohair just plain shimmers, and the yarn is so soft and just glides on the needles, but exudes an inner strength.  And the dye-job!  Can my hairdresser do that to my head?  I used to have hair that color, but I barely had a job then . . . hmmmm . . .

And I learned that these Ironstone socks would make a welcome addition to any one of a number of the groovy-women’s wardrobes:

Because they told me.  One groovy woman after another put these on.  I think that actually makes me want to keep these socks more.  Like their groovy-atoms will prevent future stress fractures and sprained ankles.

Finally, I learned that if you buy a house and plant some Asiatic lilies in the front garden, within a few years they will outgrow you:

You can see my reflection in the glass here and I’m a step down from the bed, but these flowers have surpassed my height and THEY HAVE NO BONES!  Supercalifragilistic, that’s fantastic.  See, I was an itinerant gardener for years.  I planted at rental properties and then had to leave my green charges behind when I moved; I planted gardens in friends’ yards just to have some dirt to play in.  And now look.  And I even feel safe enough to just hang orchids in full bloom outside:

Unlike me, they appreciate the hot humid mess that is today.  Glorious little lovelies.  Ok, enough.  It’s been a big week, and I have a cold, but life is really great and I feel hella blessed.  Yeah, I said hella blessed–what’re you gonna do ’bout it? Hnh.  Thought so.

I’m going to knit on my new favorite socks and design a mini-quilt specifically for my evil black cat to sleep on.  Have a nice day.

Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber.

It took me far too long to write about this book.  Barber is the most engaging of fiber-art historians, hands down.  The discipline has received far too little attention for far too many years, and it is wonderful to see so well respected a scholar attack, and love, the subject.  She is a weaver and general fiber-artist as well as a linguist and archaeologist.  That combination of disciplines lends her rare insight.  She can spot bad research miles away and can also admit when she makes mistakes in her own experimental archaeology projects.  That is rare. 

I first came across Barber because of her work on P.V. Glob’s The Bog People, one of my favorites.  I read this book slowly because I was loathe to finish it, but decided I could wrap things up once I had a copy of When They Severed Earth from Sky in my hot little hands.   Page after page, I found answers to questions that had been percolating in my head for years, decent illustrations of woven goods, pottery, and tools, and an open celebration of women’s arts through history. 

In short, string-skirts are holy, spinning is truly revolutionary in every sense, sheep are our friends, women who make textiles rock, and this is a great book.  Just go buy it and read it yourself–I don’t want to give away any of the surprises.

Me, I’m just back from the beach, er shore, er river, uh St. George island, which is a little tiny island in the Potomac Delta in St. Mary’s County Maryland.  Here, at the end of the island, in this giant cottage:

Except that shortly after this picture was taken a couple of years ago, that particular pier and gazebo ceased to exist.   This weekend the water was much bluer and the sky never turned green–both huge weather positives in my book.  That water is the Potomac Delta, and swimming in brackish water is a fine fine thing.  Swimming and lazing and crafting and singing with a gaggle of your best gal friends is one of the finest things in the world.  Had my husband and pets been there with me, I wouldn’t have come back to the sprawl.  Though had my husband been there with me, he might have popped listening to the girly yak-yak all weekend, and he would have been disappointed by the lack of pillow fights.

In addition to the fantastic weather, we ate like empresses.  Truly amazing food.  I’m still drooling now.  And on the way out a few of us stopped for blue crabs.  Glory be, I love those sweet little bugs.  And we made lovely little books together–wheeeee.  And I finished a pair of socks I actually get to keep AND started another pair I will keep.  And felted the egg onto Anubh’s hat, but forgot to photograph it, perhaps because I was allegedly drinking several adult beverages at once.  And did I mention the yacking?  There was a lot of yacking.  Some of you adults may not have had a slumber party in a while.  Go to a slumber party next weekend, I beg you.

We go to this spot every year, we girls.  I think Brigid found the campground four or five years ago.  I heart it.  I’m not a classic beach person, so this spot is special to me: it is a beach with trees.  And the water is very lovely and really quite shallow, so bad swimmers and inexperienced canoers like me are safe and easy the whole time.  The first time we went to the cabin, I suited up and asked Mikele Ann to keep an eye on me, since I’m a terrible swimmer and she is a mermaid.  She laughed and laughed and I didn’t know why until I walked about a half mile straight out into the river and could still touch the bottom.  I love my Potomac delta. 

a h’aon:

Cindy’s gift, cunningly displayed at Tuatha with a “sold” tag on it.  My spies say she showed it to  her daughter during the festival and said she wanted me to make her one.  You can’t quite tell from here, but it’s lined with the rest of the material I used to make umm . . . this.

a dó:

One Uffington pot-holder, hanging out with the amber.  Fitting, no?  In my hand is my new felt camera bag.  Schweeet.

a trí:

One felt-napping victim.  Sadly, I have no recent photographic evidence of this poor puppy:  this is its baby picture.  It is now smaller, fuzzier, and in the hands of a felt-obsessed leather worker from Virginia.  Named Virginia.  Or maybe her husband Bill has it.  Still, I want pictures of it done, ya hear?

a ceathair:

One possible patchwork-napping victim.  I’m starting to sense a trend.  Mary doesn’t want to give up the Brigid’s Cross.  She priced it so high not even my Mom would buy it.

a cúig:

Felt hanging in the sun.  And oddly covering Mary’s face.

a sé:

Look how felt wilts in the hot June weather.  This was crisp crisp crisp very recently.

agus a seacht:

Um, Bran wanted me to take this.  We will call it “still life mit beer und shadows” and sell it for a miiiiiillllllion dollars.  Need I say we took the photo Sunday morning, after more than 48 hours on site under burny-the-sun, but before the tourists came to living-history-land? Oh, and the label on that beer says “Old Heathen: Stout”.  It adds to the mystique, and the provenance.    As we’re taking this, Chip o’the cropped feet is yelling at Bran to get in the damn car if she wants to go to his house and shower.  Bran got in the car.

Cwblhau [cwbl- &hau] , cyfannu [cyfann- &1, cyfan- &2+], cyflawni [cyflawn-], gorffen [gorffenn- &1, gorffen- &2+; 3.s. & 2.s.imp. gorffen] : Welsh for "complete"

That’s enough crazy moon language for now.  I lived at Morven from 9:00 a.m. on Friday to 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, and then I returned to the site Monday at 9:00 a.m. because I really wanted to pick up some trash and move some stuff into storage.  Ok, I really wanted to drive a golf cart around really fast without getting yelled at.  But I cleaned and lugged heavy stuff about too. 

I performed original pieces with my bard-y gal-pals for the fine folks at the festival–including friends from work and from the festival who had no idea about our bardi-ness–and got wonderful responses.  Including my new favorite question: "Where can I buy your books and CDs?" 
Where indeed?  Well, ok, you can’t.  But I like the idea.  As does everyone’s favorite bronze-smith, who apparently has a recording studio set up in his house.  Who knew?  We also did a fair bit of singing around the candle (too hot for a fire) for our nearest and dearest and some new friends–including CJ, the Connecticut Celt who has the chops to stand up in our encampment and deliver a scorcher of a tale.  Them’s some rare chops, let me tell you.  And he’s going to be a dad soon, so that talent could be compounded in the expected tyke. 

One of my bags sold long before I worked up the gumption to sneak over to Tuatha to photograph it.  Cindy loved the Uffington bag I made.  Dark Mary managed yet again to refuse to sell something I made to my own Mom–that’s some strong will.  And, ultimately, I’ll just be conned into making Mom one as a present.  Virginia made me some loom weights and some wonderfully confusing linen-spinning bowls. 

What else . . . Anna-Marie got her hat back, and it is even better than it was last week.  The second felt made everyone fall more deeply in love with that hysterical object.  Oh, the cackling.  I started needle-felting the egg onto the leeetle brownie hat for Anubh, and it should be done in time to hand it back to her this weekend at the lovely cabin in lovely St. Mary’s County Maryland.  We gals are heading for water again, and we cannot be stopped. 

There’s more to tell, and I’ll get to it sometime.  In the meantime, see: I’m not the only one.  He agrees, oh yes he does.  Oh, and see this too: certainly some sense in the scribbler’s head.

It is June 5th, which means that my PCF pals and I have very few days left to do whatever needs doing before our lov-er-lee festival.  If you see me and I look, well, entirely burnt out, please pour some iced coffee or co-cola or maybe a really large amount of bourbon in my mouth.  Thanks.  In the meantime, when I’m not packing up a whole Iron-age homestead or fixing a website or helping crafters or workshop-teachers, I’ll be making bags for Tuatha.

Saturday was a big day.  I made this item much nicer:

by needle-felting the Uffington horse onto it.  And I got to do the needle felting while sitting in Lovettesville with friends chatting and eating lovely food and drinking lovely drinks.  This item is officially a pot-holder now, and will grow an appropriate loop in the top right corner any second now.  I heart it.  But I think I will end up losing it to either Virginia or Mary this weekend.  I can accept that.

The needle felting was practice for what will soon grow on . . . drumroll please . . .
El monedero del presidente!

I showed it around a bit surreptitiously yesterday during the last festival staff meeting and got lots of good responses.  I need to find a cheaper yarn alternative to make an item like this marketable through Tuatha.  The yarn alone was $60: it’s a combination of Cascade 220 and Arucania Nature Wool.   The yarn felted nicely but didn’t shrink too much, which is good considering what it cost to make this small tote.  When it was felted and ready to block, I discovered more reasons to love these three books:

I knew that they were one of my favorite art exhibition catalogs and two of my favorite songbooks, respectively.  But I had no idea that they were so perfectly sized to make the tote so perfectly right.  I hope El Presidente has copies of all three to carry about.

As wonderful as all that was, this, by far, was the best part of yesterday:

That blurry woman is a very very happy Anna-Marie, who has a very funny new hat.  I managed to completely surprise her with it–a feat unto itself–because her wonderful husband sews for her, so he has her measurements on hand at any given time, and our wonderful friend Simone knew what colors would be best.  I knitted on it right in front of her for hours when we were camping at the beginning of May,  and she apparently had no inkling of what I was plotting.  Yesterday morning I pulled up at their house with a truckload of stuff for our yard sale and muttered something about having “a couple of things you and Chip might want yourselves–I’ll set them aside for you to look at.”  When I pulled the hat out she almost fell down.  And then she jumped around a lot, and then she jumped around a lot with her daughters and husband and pals.  It was tough to get any good pictures.

I had to pry the hat our of her hands with promises to return it perfectly sized and blocked with a wired brim at the Potomac Celtic Festival.  I think we’ll needle felt something onto some of the stripes.  And then I’ll get Chip to photograph Anna-Marie and the finished hat, because he’s much better at it than I am.

For those of you feeling confused as to why a stripey handmade witch hat would make such an impression, well, you just don’t know Anna-Marie I guess.  But she has a cat named Nemesis:

Ok, I had to really work with Nemmie to make him look mean, and he admittedly looks like this much more often:

and is a fantastic purr generator, but you get the point: she has a black cat.  And a nasty rooster named Domino: her adorable leeetle daughters who want to cook and eat Domino very soon because he’s so mean.  Those of you who are unfamiliar with leeetle girls may not realize how unusual it is for leeeeetle blond cerubic girls to ask their parents to please kill the rooster, but trust me, it’s unusual.  And she clearly could blow up at least a VW bug with her mind bullets if she wanted.  So don’t test her.  Or you may end up like Domino.  Especially when Ms. Thang gets the hat back.  Which she will quite soon.  It’s in the washer now.