August Review

I set out to make progress on all the goals I set for myself this year. I had a crazy big-ass list of things to do. And I did a lot of it, surprisingly, including work on the craft room...

Work for five hours on Anna’s Bird See it here.
Work for five hours on Tree of Life Window--When I was in Maine, I didn't realize I had packed this (the q-snaps should have been a clue!) so I didn't work on it. Oh well, back in the pile.
Work for five hours on Watercolor Geraniums--Sadly, I didn't get to it. Collecting the floss for this one would have taken all five hours.
Work for five hours on Apple Sampler See it here.
Work for five hours on Tall Flowers Sampler See it here.
Work for five hours on Promise of Summers to Come See it here.
Work for 10 hours on the marquoir Pictured above.
Work for two hours on Elizabethan Rose--I couldn't find this. I'm not worried, it's gotta be somewhere.
Work for two hours on Majestic Rooster--No, but I'll get to it. You shall not get the best of me, frickin' chicken!
Start Liz Turner Diehl, 18th Century Knot Garden See it here.
Start either Christmas Carols or Snowman Stocking, Bent Creek See snowman stocking here.
Start either Jillian’s or Elisabeth’s stocking, Shepherd’s Bush--Started Elisabeth's; see it here. (And can I just say, it's tough to find the Crescent Colours #5s.)

I also stitched birthday gifts (here and here) and just because presents (here). Phew. I should take next month off!

Ordinary Me: Z

Z: Zinc oxide Ever since I burned my nose while on vacation in Aruba freshman year of college, I have to wear it when I am on the beach. Oh sure, I look like an idiot, but when your nose is removed because of skin cancer, I won't look so dumb. I also promised my podiatrist I would wear it on my scars this summer. And I did...the one day I made it to the beach.

zymurgy the science of fermenting. Thank the sweet baby Jebus that someone left the bread out in the rain, for indeed, where would we be without beer? My latest favorite is SkullSplitter, which is not even the best thing I know to come out of Orkney. No, that title is reserved for my mother-in-law. The daughter of a lighthouse keeper, she spent a number of years there.

Thank you all for sticking with me these 26 days! I appreciate all your comments.

Pull up Your Stockings

I have started one of the Bent Creek Christmas stockings. This one is for me. I'm going to have to put it aside to focus on making Christmas presents, but I set out to start it and now I have. (White blob wearing scarf.)

I also set out to begin one of the Shepherd's Bush stockings for my nieces. I started Elisabeth's stocking for Lala. I'm awaiting an order of pearl cotton for this one, so you can see, I actually had to count on this one, which I hate. It's not much, but it's a start.

Ordinary Me: Y

Y: Yogurt I am a huge fan of the Greek yogurt, Fage. It's not like the national brand yogurts made with gelatin. It's got such a creamy consistency. Mmmm. I never thought I'd wax poetic about yogurt (oh, have you?) but there you go.

Yeh-yay-yoh! I have no idea how to spell this. This is the best the dude and I can do. This is what Yay-o says when something stinks (and the origin of her nom de blog). It's very convenient to have a little secret code to say in public when something (or someone) smells. The dude and I use it all the time. When I was in ME with my parents, my dad said, "Whoa-aoh!" which is another thing my niece says a lot. Apparently, we're all a bunch of meanies imitating a retarded child. (With love, it's all with love.)

Yourami When Lala was 2 1/2 or 3, her dad took a trip. She asked her mother where he had gone; my cousin said, "Miami." The next day, my cousin asked Lala where daddy was, in one of those teacherly moments good parents have with their children. Lala thought for a minute then said brightly, "Your-ami!" I think watching children acquire language is the most fascinating thing about them.

Ordinary Me: X

X: X-ray. Jacque has been waiting for this one, but this is one of the easier letters--in fact, when there are fewer words that start with the letter, I find it easier to choose something to write about. R and Y (and many others) have sent me to the dictionary. Am I the only big dork reading the dictionary as a writing prompt?

I am sure this is going to be what everyone talks about. The times we've been x-rayed. I'm not going to mention the dental x-rays because they are too many to record. Once, I slammed my own finger in the door of my dad's SUV. That was a pretty good x-ray because we were in the ruralsuburbs and went to the emergency room at the country hospital. From the time I walked in to the time I walked out with a diagnosis took probably forty minutes. Yes, I broke it. I had to wear a splint to the Spirit of Cross Stitch Festival that year. Which reminds me, I must be due for a tetnus shot...

The more spectacular x-ray took place in Tczew, Poland. I was teaching ESL in a small mining town south of Gdansk with an American foundation. I had run upstairs to give something to a fellow teacher, and on the way back down, I fell off my shoe and down the stairs. I was walking right behind the program director, and of course the words out of my mouth were unprintable. My ankle swelled, and I was helped into my classroom. The students put me on some desks and I promptly threw up in front of them. (I'm not sure what a teacher's worst nightmare is, but this is up there.) A doctor was called. Interestingly, he arrived in the ambulance. That's sort of stunning to me--the doctor came to me. Makes sense, I am the injured party. The building we were in had no elevators, so the doctor and ambulance driver carry my fat ass downstairs. One of my students, one of the Polish teachers, the doctor and I all drive in the ambulance to the country hospital, where I am again carried downstairs to the emergency room by doctor and ambulance driver (can you imagine this story in the U.S.?). A doctor, with lit cigarette in hand, begins poking my ankle. He declares it broken. In the meantime, one of the American teachers--a nursing PhD--has arrived to "oversee" the process. She's a little shocked by the state of the hospital. Smoking doc orders an x-ray. The x-ray tech sets me on table and begins to exit the room. I use sign language to get a lead vest to protect me from this old and no doubt leaky x-ray machine. It turns out that I have not broken my ankle, but I have torn so many ligaments that it must be casted. And they give me a plaster cast--and a prescription for one crutch that I must pick up at a place that I must be driven to. I am not to walk on the cast. With only one crutch. When I return to camp, the city (Gdansk) doctor for the language camp I'm at is completely outraged by assbackwards technology. She insists on getting a fiberglass cast; we go back to the hospital where this little redhead is giving all the old white men hell. Eventually, one doctor sneaks over to tell her that he can change the cast if I visit his private practice. I have to pay cash ($60) to get a new cast. Everyone tries to scare me by saying, "you know how they take a cast off?" and making buzzing sounds...if only. The doctor cuts the old cast off with gardening shears. I walk around Poland--including public toilets--with a fiberglass cast and no shoe (ewww). Eventually, we fashion shoe from a Teva and a shoelace. Unfortunately, my toes start bleeding because the cast is cutting into them. My nurse friend and I decide to take off the new fiberglass cast, which we cut/saw off with a pair of old scissors. I walk around Poland in hiking boots and a skirt. Upon my return to Los Angeles, I visit an American orthopedist who says he would have casted it too; but my ankle seems to work fine now.

La Plus que Change

Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching has a guest column at get crafty about the state of needlework industry.

How tired am I of people classifying the needlework industry as country? It's the strawman. It's just such a stereotype. How cool I am to be working in this goose infested industry? Tiresome. Nevertheless, she makes some good points: if an industry wants to attract new blood, it has to be willing to make some concessions, to welcome newcomers, to look for the new new thing rather than sit and wait for the customers who are seeking the new thing to change into customers who are seeking what they've already got.

The good news for Hart is that when I first started going to cross-stitch things, there was a lone woman teaching punch needle. I never bothered to visit her thinking I didn't have time or resources or even interest in it. Now look at it. Taken off...and there I am searching the craft room for the punch needle. Someday, everyone else will catch up with Jenny...

Interestingly, one commenter points out that Piecework--whose editor Hart champions as someone looking to change things--bemoaned the lack of new blood last year. Specifically focusing not on changing the needlework industry, but rather getting the kids involved. We've discussed that.

How come the needlework shop owners get together and wring their hands about this stuff? Have none of them heard of market research? Come on! We're out here--interview us!

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Also, in my efforts to spread the word about Sew Simple I want to let you know that I saw it in both Joanns and AC Moore recently. It's out there people.

New Start: Knot Garden

Liz Turner Diehl
18th Century Knot Garden
khaki evenweave of some sort that was in the collection
prescribed Madiera threads (that I bought 13 years ago...)

This was one of the projects I decided to start this year. And now I have. I'm looking forward to stitching on this again because the next few rounds include specialty stitches (the center is all cross). The directions, however, leave much to be desired. Good thing I'm not an amateur.

Ordinary Me: W

W: Waldorf salad--a staple of my childhood Thanksgiving table.
Warehouse--my father is a beer distributor. When we were kids, my sister and I would take every opportunity to play on beer pallets, climbing ever higher over the cement floor without a net. What were my parents thinking? (It was difficult to get to over two pallets high because the second pallet never had packages removed from it--no footholds.)

Writing--my job since forever--first I wrote display ads for a publishing house, then I wrote book jackets at an academic publisher, then I went to graduate school in English lit for a million years, while there I taught writing to college freshmen. Then I put together events and edited a newsletter--and wrote a little column (if you know my real name, and you do, you can find some of the pieces I wrote for that). Oh, I wrote a dissertation. Now, I write nonacademic stuff. It's funny, I write for a living, but I don't consider myself a writer. In the stuff I brought to PA from my parents' attic there are all sorts of scraps of my writing. And, boy, a lot of it really sucks.

Wigilia--our family celebrates on Christmas Eve with the oplatek. It's supposed to be a meatless meal, but ours never is--I guess it's because my Polish grandfather died when my mother was quite young and he either didn't adhere to it or my grandmother (the one you know and love) never noticed. Anyway, we have a sort of hodgepodge of Polish dishes (pierogi, kielbasa, babka--this is the wrong name for it, ours is a cake made from potatoes, a latke on steroids), New England dishes (lobster stew), and family recipes (spanakopita, liverwurst pate, my aunt's famous cheeseball, teriyaki chicken wings).

Auntie's Famous Cheeseball (I bet you thought you were getting the Waldorf salad recipe)

• 2 pkgs cream cheese, softened
• 2 jars Kraft pimento cheese spread (if you're really good I'll give the family recipe with Kraft Old English cheese spread. Mmmmm....spread.)
• 4 oz blue cheese
• Tabasco sauce
• walnuts

Mix everything together except the nuts. (My aunt's recipe says to use a dash of Tabasco, but I really pour it in; it gives a nice tang without being spicy. ) Form into a ball--I sort of do a half-sphere because, well, it's softened cream cheese. Pat the nuts onto the surface. Refrigerate. That's it. People love this stuff. When I first made it in grad school people laughed at me, but even the guy who doesn't eat cheese loved this. And I'm pretty sure it's why the dude loves me. I know it's the reason he consents to go to Christmas with my family.

Ordinary Me: V

V: What is V for? Venn diagram which I always use to describe relationships? Venus flytrap which I had as a child? Voter? Vilnius birthplace of my mother's paternal grandmother? Violence for my dissertation? A story about the sticky "v" on my keyboard, which makes logging in difficult? Or a Maggie story?

One Christmas eve, my grandmother asks the gathering to explain this "dot com" "www" stuff to her. The dude, perhaps naively, gamely undertakes explaining the internet to my grandmother who has never used a computer. My grandmother who can't operate her VCR, who brings scam letters to my mother to vet, who well, who understands little about this modern life she's living. The dude explains that on computers, you can find pages with these addresses; he even explains the difference between .gov, .edu, and .com. At the end of this rather sophisticated explanation, my grandmother asks, "so what's voice mail?" (Just in case I've portrayed her as a complete idiot, we do believe she meant to ask about e-mail.)

So, now, whenever the dude explains something crazy to me--like some chess opening or pot odds--I'll ask, "so what's voice mail?"

Update: Anna's Bird

The last time I showed you this, was a year ago. I know I worked on it some in March at camp, and I put it into the rotation a couple of times, though I don't think I actually worked on it until now.

Anna's Bird
Good Huswife
32-ct black linen with called for WDW and GAST

Everyone who sees this in person loves it. Even my dad, who is not known for his observational skills, told me how pretty it was. I was thinking I was going to hang this in the living room, but my mother suggested it would look nicer in the dining room. I think she has a point, but that means I have to frame it in glass...

I started outlining the scallops for two reasons. First, I am getting close to finishing this, and I want to get a clearer sense of how much is left. Second, it calls for three skeins of Tiger's Eye and I have been using just two. I want to spread it around so the last skein won't be used in just one section.

Imagine my Surprise!

I wasn't just not blogging, I wasn't even reading that much. I've fallen behind--over 100 blogs to read. So I was whipping through the big ones--The Superficial, Craft Gossip, and Craft Magazine.

Imagine my surprise. When I hadn't heard from them at the end of July, I just pouted a bit (offline) and went on with my life. And there's not even any one in the house to share my joy!

Thanks for the Anniversary Wishes

I'm back in PA. Sorry to have fallen down there, but this not working thing, it really took a toll on my blogging.

Just to let you know how much lobster you missed:
Wednesday: lunch, Flo's Dogs. Dinner, batter fried clams at Ken's in Scarborough (I prefer crumb).
Thursday: lunch, farm stand tomato sandwiches. Dinner, shared a 6 lb lobster with my parents.
Friday: lunch, more Flo's. Dinner, buffet at the Colony one (small) lobster, steamers, and two cups of clam chowder
Saturday: lunch, more tomatoes. Dinner--I was dying for beans from the Steakhouse. I had the ribs too. There are leftover beans in my fridge right now. I think they may be calling.

And here's something that I worked on:

Apple Sampler
Curtis Boehringer
DMC on 22 ct evenweave

Ordinary Me: R-U, Catching Up

R: Copping out. See this list.

S: Sunday dinner Almost every Sunday the dude and I sit down with my cousin's family and Sissy to eat dinner. Sometimes it's just pizza that we've ordered in, sometimes my cousin outdoes herself and dinner includes appetizer, a knockout entree with two vegetable sides, and dessert. She makes cakes (I really ought to feature her here one day). Sometimes she makes marvelous cakes for our birthdays, sometimes she makes the cake for someone else and feeds us "the hump" (the part of the cake that gets cut off to flatten it and make it look professional). But the best part is that we are all together, taking part in each other's lives and helping my nieces grow up to be interested, interesting, loved, and lovable people. (The bitch, sometimes she gets sentimental...)

T: tonic When I was growing up, this is what we called soda (pop, coke, fill in the regionalism). When you think about it, it makes as much sense as soda, and on the days you use Coke or ginger ale to settle your stomach, it makes more sense than any other word for the fizzy concoction. It makes a helluva lot more sense than calling it coke. If you want to call the brown stuff cola, that's one thing, but do not tell me you want an orange coke. Other words people laugh at me for using: grocery shopping and pocketbook.

U: Ulcerative Colitis. I believe in a humanistic medicine, so I don't define myself by my disease. It is what it is. I am fortunate to have a very mild case, with very few flare ups. It still means I have to stick medicine in unthinkable places and have medical equipment stuck up my bum pretty regularly.

I try to deal with it all with a sense of humor. The story of my diagnosis cracks people up--it must be pretty good to do that given the subject matter. I've been thinking about writing a book about my experiences. I'm calling it "My Big Fat White Ass."

Sale

Another sale at the Needlecase. Here's the e-mail:

**DMC and ANCHOR floss at 20 cents per skein
**DMC Pearl Cotton Skeins ... just 55 cents per skein
**DMC Pearl Cotton Balls ... just $1.00 per ball
**Kreinik Blending Filament ... 70 cents
**Kreinik #4 Braid ... $1.25
**Kreinik #8 Braid ... $1.65
**Kreinik #12 and #1 ... $1.95
**MILL HILL BEADS ... 55 cents per package
**Any in stock EWE & EYE & FRIENDS CROSS STITCH CHARTS are 1/2 OFF ORIGINALPRICE.
**AND any in stock EWE & EYE & FRIENDS KITS are $12

Save some beads for me...I need to get home and check to see what I need!

Ordinary Me: Q

Q: Quilts I'm sure this is going to be everyone's Q, except maybe if people live in Queensland or Quincy or happen to be named Queenie. If I had thought about it, I would have photographed the quilt I am working on--have been since one summer when I was in college I told my mother I was bored. She owned a quilt store then--or maybe she had just closed it and was jonesing to teach people. We decided I'd make a pinwheel charm quilt. It was blue and white. One day while we were combing fabric stores, we ran into a quilter who learned of my project and sent me 5" squares of navy fabric. My first exchange! Of course, these days you just have to go to an online quilting group to exchange charm squares or even some of the bigger fabric stores will sell them. But back in the day, you had to accost strange women in the store to get some of their fabric. ;) Nevertheless, the charm quilt was not finished. When I got a queen sized bed, I thought I should change it from a single to a queen, and the thought of collecting all that fabic (med to dark blue and non-blue light fabrics) made me shudder. Plus some of the squares are really, really ugly, as in not square. Maybe this should make the list of goals in 2008...

Four Years

I have been blogging for four years. Let me tell you, sisters, I have never written anything this religiously, not even my dissertation! 858 posts. Incredible changes in blogging technology--I used to have to put pictures up on a website and link to them; then we could use picasa, now, just click a button. First, there were no other needlework blogs, then enough to keep in a sidebar, now there are readers that tell us when blogs are updated--and enough needlework blogs that I can be discerning. Incredible changes in me as well--in my geography, career, and personal life. Just look: I am a person who sets goals and achieves them. I want to thank you for reading, especially those of you who've stuck around for so long.


In my bizzaro habit of making a hard copy of my blog, I have filled a whole 3" binder, and I'm looking for another notebook to put it all in.

I had another lobster roll for lunch, and we are reportedly having lobster for dinner--just in case you want to keep up on all the lobster eating.

Ordinary Me: P

P: Parent Trap I don't know why I love this cornball movie as much as I do, but I do love it. (the original). I especially love the camping trip.

pomegranate I love eating these. Sure, they make your fingers all red, but it is the only fruit that I know of that delivers the same taste sensation (sour and sweet) as those sour cherry balls I love so well. Only it's fruit, so I don't have to be embarrassed to admit that I love sour candy. What am I, seven?

Portland, ME Went today for the first time. Visited the Victorian Mansion and shopped. I was with my mother, of course we shopped. You should see the shoes I got!

Some Number of Hours on Summers to Be

Stitching on the public transport, it's been hard to count the hours, though I thank JennL for her suggestion about how to do it. I take the bus to the subway, and sometimes I catch the express bus and sometimes, like this past week, I have to take two buses to get to the subway, and that adds about 15 minutes to the morning commute and 45 minutes to the commute home. Sometimes I read on the bus and stitch on the subway. Sometimes I stitch the whole way. Sometimes I daydream out the window. It's impossible to count.

Once I got to a certain point, I decided I wouldn't do five hours on this, but I would finish the chairs and the lettering. Sorry about the cockeyed picture. I cropped then rotated when I should have rotated then cropped.

Had a lobster roll today. (But Wild Willy's for dinner.)

A Quick Note before Vacation

It's now 6:00 pm. I've weighed in (stayed the same), brought the car to be inspected (it was 7 months overdue), and weeded and mulched the whole garden. I am supposed to leave tomorrow for vacation, but I have not done the laundry, packed, cleaned out the car, or chosen the prize winner and sent the prize. If it's okay with you, I'm going to deal with that last bit when I get back.

I will have full internet access while I'm away, so I will be blogging. But tomorrow, I drive.

Ordinary Me: O

O: O'Rooney I don't think we know anyone named O'Rooney, but in our family it's a term of affection. So Pops becomes "Daddy O'Rooney." Sissy, "Sissy O'Rooney." At least, I think that's how it's spelled. It could be more like Rice-a-roni--Mommyorooni. No, it's definitely Irish. Though we are not.



Joyce Carol Oates My dissertation sprung from an assignment I had to do on her work. Too bad it didn't spring fully formed from her head--in the time it took me to write my dissertation, she published like six novels, a few plays, some collection of essays, and probably some poetry. It all started when was doing a bibliography of her work, and I noticed that people thought her work wasn't feminist because it was violent. And so it was my research was undertaken. I was going to call it "Violent Femmes" but my director thought it was too cute.
Edited: Just in case you thought I was exaggerating about Oates's output, from the time I passed quals to the time I handed in an accepted dissertation, she wrote 13 novels and novellas, 5 collections of short stories, 1 book of poems, 2 collections of plays, 2 essay collections, and 2 children's books and edited 7 anthologies. Check it out.

Ordinary Me: N

N: New Hampshire I was born and raised in NH by people born and raised in NH by people born and raised in NH, but that's where it ends. And my parents were born and raised in the section of Nashua where people spoke French at home and went to school to learn English, so I'm not that kind of New Englander. I always thought of it as a pretty ordinary place. Sure we could drive to the mountains or the ocean or the lakes in only an hour (we lived in the south central part of the state). And the leaves turned in the autumn, and we made maple syrup at school. But pretty ordinary. When I went off to college, upon hearing I was from NH, people would tell me they had a "summer place" in NH. It started to piss me off. Mostly because they were missing the point. New Hampshire has year-round joys.

The other thing I learned pretty quickly was just how white NH had been (98.8% in the late 80s). The upshot is that I realize the limitations of NH, but don't you go badmouthing my home state!

nonprofit With the exception of the 6 months I spent in retail and the year as a paralegal, I have spent my whole career being frustrated by the nonprofits I've worked for. That's 17.5 years of banging my head against incompetence.

Upping the Old Lady Count

The cross-stitch, she is for the old ladies? In writing on the Huffington Post about sherry, Molly Laas says:

But I don't keep a bottle stuffed between the sofa cushions, and my other hobbies don't include cross stitch, Wheel of Fortune and going to bed at 7:30 p.m. I don't have snow white, poofy hair, but I still like sherry. It's a crying shame that sherry, the pride of Andalucía, gets maligned as a tipple for tipsy old ladies. It's time to change all that.

Um, yeah, drunk stitching that works.

But you know what, my MIL drinks sherry and doesn't stitch. So clearly, sherry for old ladies; stitching, not. Also the dude drinks sherry. So very confusing.

Old Lady References: 3

HB to DD

Another August birthday...
Free pattern here.
Caron Collection Waterlilies, peacock maybe. Since the great craft room cleanup, I can't tell you anything...
Fabric is linen, some kind of natural, 32 count
3.75 inches across.
The button was in bag of junk buttons I bought. So perhaps this qualifies as "just junk"?

Happy significant birthday, dear friend! Can't wait for your birthday trip to the east coast!

Thanks, everyone, for your comments on the last biscornu.

Ordinary Me: L & M

I've been trying to stay off the computer when I get home at night. I think it's nice to try to spend time with the dude; once I'm on, I'm sucked into blogs and other things until bed time. Isn't screwing around on the computer what work is for? Yes, yes, it is.

Thanks for all your comments on my gifts. Jo, I called that finishing ladder stitch, but it's because I had my head up my ass again. It's similar to the finishing you describe on your heart ornament--stitching together the backstitches. But instead of whipstitching, I do more of a lacing thing which makes a decorative edging of sorts...

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On to the encyclopedia
L: Locanico and linguica Two of my favorite sausages. Eating locanico at a Greek fair in the Valley once put me in such a state of rapture I declared to the dude that we should travel the world eating sausages! I'd still like to do it one day, but we have arguments over Germany. The dude thinks Germany is the home of all sausage and must be included. I say any culture where the people eat fat sausage (that is, sausage made out of fat) is one to avoid. And I won't hear a word against black pudding, or as we called it blood sausage (which is actually a different sort of thing). It's the Canuck in me. (And wikipedia is wrong: in New England, we call it linguica, we're not a bunch of xenophobic halfwits. We can speak Portuguese.)

Luna Moth When I was a kid, I had The Children's Book of Knowledge. I read it until the covers fell off. I loved the pictures of the various peoples in their native costumes. But I was totally entranced by the luna moth. It was just so huge! About 4 years ago, I finally saw one--it the Natural History Museum's Pavilion of Wings. It was like achieving a childhood goal.

M: Manhattan The drink, not the place--though I did live there briefly. I drank four of these at the wedding. Now you know why the dude's first responsibility as part of a married couple was to announce to those gathered at the post-wedding brunch, "On behalf of my wife, I'd like to thank you all for coming." (Actually the first was to hold my wedding dress out of the vomit.) I couldn't stand up until 1:00 pm. We had to get a late check out. I was miserable. A year or so later, I was visiting a college friend and her husband got us drinks. He asked if I wanted bourbon. "I love bourbon!" I enthused. "Yes, I know," he responded. I was a little embarrassed, but only a little.

Macaroni and cheese my mom makes the best!
2 T butter
2 T flour
2 c warm milk
1 lb grated cheddar, preferably Vermont, the white kind (let people know you're not eating boxed M&C)
1 lb elbow macaroni, boiled but underdone
2 slices bread, buttered

Melt the butter in a medium pot. Stir in the flour, brown. Slowly pour in the warm milk--it's gotta be warm, people. Whisk until thick. Stir in the cheese. Yes, all of it.

Put the macaroni in a buttered 2-qt baking dish, pour part of the cheese sauce in. Stir. Continue to pour in the sauce until it's slightly creamier than you want. You're probably going to have some leftover sauce; use it on baked potatoes or broccoli. Slice the buttered bread into 3/4" squares. Sprinkle on top of the macaroni. Do not omit this step. This was my sister's and my favorite part of this favorite meal. The bread will suck up the cheese oil. It is the best flavor ever. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes. Use the croutons as your guide--see how important they are? Don't let them burn.

Counter Clockwise

A news story from the heartland: 4-H Royalty Crowned.

In addition, [our queen] finds time to be involved with the Tech Committee, Small Animal Association and Slow Spokes. A member of Whiteford Workers, she excels in communication projects and needlework. Her favorite project area, though, is consumer education, where she won a trophy this week.

"One of the requirements is to go shopping, and I love shopping," she said. "It helps me (discipline) myself to watch my spending on outfits."

She won a trophy in modeling Thursday morning and dressed in a tan-and-white business suit that she also wore to her royalty interview and for the State Award. She also earned sweepstakes at the 2007 fair for her achievement booth, greeting cards, jewelry and countered cross-stitch. She also took part in seven communications projects on the same day last week.

Do you think "consumer education" teaches the 4-H-ers that you don't need all the things "they" tell you you need? Does it help people understand false consciousness and the ways which corporations exploit consumers for fun and profit? Does it teach them to have hobbies that aren't shopping? Does it suggest that the kids "make it do or do without?" I thought not. But she is learning to "watch her spending." I love that. I just imagine her saying, "I'm watching all my money float out of my wallet" while Disney princesses float around her head singing about things she should buy to be popular.

But I digress. What is it this thing they call countered-cross stitch? A prize to the person whose definition makes me laugh out loud.

Ordinary Me: K

K: Korean food A lot of these encyclopedia entries have sent me back into my memory banks, but this one is of the moment. I have been craving Korean food lately: bibim bap, bulgogi, kimchi, and little side dishes like spicy tofu or the perplexing potato salad.

Across the street from USC, there is the nastiest mall. (Circumlocute the mall and count the rat traps!) They have a food court that no one should eat in but everybody does. There's a little Korean dive there that makes the sweetest barbecue sauce for the jap chae. I crave it. They also did the fieriest pork dish that they only served in the winter. Mmmmmmmmmmm, fiery.

When my friend Sunhee found out I ate there, she was appalled. So she took us up Vermont to some real Korean places. And fortunately, before she and her husband left L.A. they took us to Chosun Galbee, a Korean barbecue (try the Daeji Bulgogi). Oh, okay, one story from the memory banks.

My father-in-law and his girlfriend were visiting from England. We took them to El Cholo (try the green corn tamales or the shrimp fajitas). FIL had the steak fajitas (he pronounced it FA-jit-tas). After the first bite he had to take out his dentures to eat. Um, okay, gross. This happened again the next day at the farmer's market with the croissant. Before we went to Chosun Galbee that night, the dude took his father aside and told him he had to do something about the ill-fitting teeth. At dinner, the girlfriend proudly announced that he used his denture fixative just for me. Why would you not use that all the time? WTF? And even more, if they give you free dentures in your country, why would you not demand that they be fitted properly?

Back to the near-present: last Tuesday, in the 100 degree heat, I walked eight blocks to get me some Korean. I mistakenly ordered the bibim bap cold. It was pretty good--especially since it was so hot out--but it didn't fill that craving. The barbecue sauce was spicier than it was sweet. And where's my spoon? What am I a barbarian eating my rice with chopsticks?

Today, I tried the Jap Chae. (And I noticed I have to ask for a spoon.) If I could smuggle in sweet barbecue sauce to drizzle over it, I might have found my madeleine.

best pal, birthday gal

I just heard from best pal that she has received her birthday gift. I tried to capture best pal's khaki and t-shirt style with this one--I think I managed that. But try as I might, this little biscornu wouldn't give me a good photo.

Can I just say how much I love making these? I love making these! It's not just the cool way it becomes eight sided; I also like the ladder stitching finishing. That is the kind of finishing I can handle!

Free pattern here.
NN Blue Bayou, which turned out to have way too much white in it for my taste.
Khaki evenweave, 30 count
2.5 inches across

Ordinary Me: J

J: "Just junk" When we were kids, my grandmother would take us out to dinner for our birthdays (just the two of us) and she would give us a bunch of little presents. When she gave us the little presents she would always say, "It's nothing, just junk."

When we were little, we loved getting just junk. It was all those glittery and sparkly and feathery things that would catch your eye in the gift shop or five and dime that your mother would never buy for you. It was awesome. I remember, though, when I hit the age when "just junk" wasn't so awesome anymore. My grandmother had bought me a giant peach feather pen, like one you'd use for a guest book at a wedding. I was about 15, and this junk didn't hold appeal for me any more.

When I stitched my sister her Shepherd's Bush stocking, I filled it with little trinkets, and attached a note "Just Junk." She loved it. I think it was partly the sentimentality, but also, I chose better junk. One thing I remember putting in was a rhinestone belt buckle that I bought in the jewelry district in L.A. for $5. Rhinestone belt buckles were hot (attributed to Sex and the City, I think).

One year my grandmother bought my sister these shopworn candles that were in the shape of Christmas pastries. They smelled so rancid. They looked used, like some little kid had stuck his fingernails in them. They were awful. (To be fair, my grandmother is losing her eyesight.) Auntie Em took grannie aside and told her, "no more junk." But she just can't help herself, and she has bought a few gifts that she wraps and doesn't put names on. She'll foist them on guests, or if we're unlucky, on us.

More Secret Stitching

*Michelle is here in Philadelphia, and I'm afraid I hounded her until she agreed to meet. Jenna, Michelle, and I and Terry, Eric, and the dude (who does have a name) went to Jones. I made little gifts for them because, you know, I only put 10,000 things on my to-do list for August--I've got all the time in the world! But they were fun--good stitching for the commute.


Left: Friendship Grows, Lizzie*Kate freebie here (pdf)
Graziano linen cream/natural
All sorts of fiber substitutions
JABC buttons
Finishing: ladder stitched edges, "stuffed" with foam core board, organza ribbon hanger (unfortunately it shows through the back I should have put batting on the foam core board, but you know, the craft room is in boxes in the basement).




How perfect is that fabric? I am so impressed with myself! (With the match, the finishing leaves something to be desired. There's too much white, and I wish I had time to make a nice blue cord. It really needed blue cord.)

Treasured Trio I
Sweetheart Tree
Unknown white evenweave.
Called for fibers.
Fabulous finishing fabric found at Joann's; white cord also purchased.
Finished as flat fold.

Edited to add: Duh, I had fun! It was really nice to meet Michelle and Eric and to see Jenna and Terry again. Jenna, we are totally taking you up on the offer!

Ewe & Eye & Friends Kit Sale

The Needlecase just announced a sale on Ewe & Eye & Friends kits. Instead of $30, they are $12. It won't show up in the cart, but you will be charged $12 when they ship. While you're there, sign up for the newsletter, and you'll know about the good sales too.

I think I see some pumpkins in my future...

Ordinary Me: I

Ice Cream: I think the best way to describe this one is to reprint the toast I offered to the dude at our wedding reception. (To the best of my memory.)

Anyone who knows my father will understand why I am beginning with a bit of trivia. New Englanders have the highest per capita consumption of ice cream in the United States. And [the Van Schurmans] do their part to keep those numbers up. Sometimes, we even have ice cream for dinner. When [the dude] joined our family, he balked. He demanded to have a proper dinner. And those of you who know my mother will understand why we drove through McDonalds for him. So it is with [some meaning] that I share these soon to be immortal words of Sarah McLaughlin, "your love is better than ice cream, better than anything else that I've tried."

When I finished, I turned to my sister and said, "Did that sound like I was imitating Rita Rudner?" Which it did. Totally. I have no idea why, and if you ask me today to imitate Rita Rudner, I don't think I could.

Ordinary Me: H

H: Ho. My younger niece is developmentally delayed. She's at an age where it is still difficult to tell the extent of her retardation--she seems to have age-appropriate comprehension--but she has a fairly extensive inability to speak. She has a few words she can say clear as day: mommy, daddy, puppy, and "Tant too," which even strangers recognize as thank you. She has a few words that we all know, "eeeee" with the gesture to her mouth is eat, but if she puts her hand on her belly it's please. Ho mostly means horse. She does hippotherapy to help with the hypotonia. And she loves horses. (She rides at Thorncroft, a very special place that works wonders for kids like her.) She has a giant stuffed horse, Pa, that she rides in the house--sometimes, like a circus performer, standing on his back.

Ho can also mean hole. It is articulated slightly differently, but not a difference that I could spell. She's obsessed with a hole in our staircase. (The home was owned by older women who needed a chairlift to get up the stairs. When they removed it, they left a hole in the carpeted stairs--really why remove the carpet to fix the hole?) As my cousin's family was preparing for their second visit to our house, my niece insisted on bringing her tools. She came in and went right for the ho. She spent several hours poking it with her plastic screwdriver, pounding it with her plastic hammer, and trying the wrench too.

But my favorite is when ho is strung together with ho. Ho Ho is, of course, Santa. Last Christmas, before the lawn reindeer made it out of the house, she lined up every reindeer decoration from smallest to largest in front of a train of dining room chairs. She put the presents that were under the tree in the last chair. She was Ho Ho. And if you asked her what she was doing, she made intricate hand motions and said, "Flew." She was devastated when the reindeer had to go out on the lawn.

She doesn't always speak our language, but she shows me new ways of interacting with the world every day.

Ordinary Me: G

G: Great Salt Lake Desert When I was three, my father moved the family cross-country. He had moved to San Diego to take a sales job, but didn't like it. By the time my mother, sister, and I joined him, he had moved up to San Francisco where we lived in a motel. One of my first memories was drawing on a naugahyde chair with pen in that room, and my sister sleeping in her car carrier, this sort of giant 60s picnic basket for babies. Eventually, my parents decided it was time to go home to New Hampshire. On the drive home, we passed through the Great Salt Lake Desert. My mom, always thinking, made my dad stop the car so she could scoop up some desert "for the kids to take to show and tell*." She grabbed one of her Avon powder puff boxes, discarded the powder, and ran into the salt flats to scoop up salt. Upon her return, my father said, "It's a good thing I didn't tell you about the rattlesnakes." My mother's response--as is typical--"Jesus, Dick."

This long apocryphal story--I have no idea whether the Salt Lake Desert has snakes or not--leads to the next important "G"--grammar. Consider the horror of Christians everywhere at the lapse of one little comma. My mother's swear directed at my father, Richard, becomes something entirely different.

Praise be to the comma; blessed are they who use punctuation correctly.

* That salt did end up in some classrooms in Thorton's Ferry School, and a good thing too.

In the News

Well, I should have known my readers would be in the know. Or, you know, too frightened of me to say anything bad about my politics (evil grin).

I'm working on a secret project right now (even though I have eleventy-million things on my list of August goals), so I have nothing to show. I do, however, have a few interesting items I found in the news to share.

---

Biker Babes
From an ad for online photo sharing

“Perhaps you belong to a cross-stitching club or the other end of the spectrum, a motorcycle or classic car club.”

But what of the women who stitch these?

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Aren’t Stitchers Dumb?
From a Salt Lake Tribune article on the two women chiefs-of-staff for the senators from Utah:

[Her bag] also holds her latest cross-stitch or needlepoint work and she surprises people when she starts stitching in the middle of staff meetings or negotiations with Democratic staffers. They are more surprised when they realize she has understood and distilled everything that has gone on.

Her sense of humor can be as sharp and pointed as her needles - and can rub some the wrong way, say those who know her.

Teehee—don’t anyone tell them she’s stitching with blunt needles! But, yeah, how come you can't listen and stitch at the same time? Is it because others find it difficult to walk and chew gum?

---

And Men are Great at Everything
An article from Monroe County News on a woman's county fair prizes

Leonard Hopkins Jr. of Trenton presented the award. He has been presenting the award for the last couple of years. He's a former Homemaker of the Year for Wayne County.

Ordinary Me: F

F: Feminist I'm not sure there are many more misunderstood words in English than this one. I think several factors contribute to this problem. First, the conservatives shout the loudest, so their definitions get the most airplay. As a result, not many people can define "feminist" but most know exactly what a "feminazi" is. I once asked my students to define the word feminist, and they refined it until we came to this: "A woman who bulldozes her way over men to get what she wants." Ahem. Then I asked the gender studies student to define it for them. It sounds so harmless when you look at the face of it.

The other problem is that there are many feminisms, and things that make people think can so easily confuse them. It is a label I embrace, and if you wonder why, I invite you to do research into the subject to find out. You didn't think I was going to make this easy, did you?

Ordinary Me: D & E

D: diet Coke
I can't even stand the taste of full sugar coke. It makes my teeth itch. Pepsi 1 is an acceptable alternative, but only just.

E:
ESPN I'm a sports fan--all sports. And I love watching ESPN. I once ran into the station's basketball talking heads in my hotel in Texas. Almost knocked (former) Coach Van Gundy right over.

Eggplant. My favorite vegetable--and color too! My uncle is a haberdasher, and he told the dude the secret of getting men to wear pink and purple--call them salmon and eggplant. The dude wears his purple shirt and tie, but does remind me that he knows what he's really wearing. (It doesn't work with the salmon, period.)

Here's an eggplant recipe even the dude will eat.
1 T olive oil
1 eggplant, peeled and finely chopped
1 red onion, chopped
3 minced garlic cloves
6 plum tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 c dry white wine
1 T chopped oregano
1/2 c water
3/4 lb medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/3 c crumbled feta

Heat the oil in a nonstick skillet. Add the eggplant and saute until lightly browned. Stir in the onion and garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, wine, oregano, and water, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until most of the liquid evaporates. Add the shrimp to the veg until they turn pink. Sprinkle with feta.

Progress!

We've made some progress in the craft room. Check it out.

Five Hours on Tall Flowers

This is more than five hours, but I find it difficult to count my hours when I am stitching on public transportation.

I have begun clearing out the craft room so that we can finish our last room (okay, the bathrooms need painting, but that is small potatoes compared to the rest of the rooms). Today we should get the carpet up. This week we'll prep the room for painting. Oh, why take the carpet up first? Because underneath the outstanding green shag is an old rubber mat. That disintegrates on contact. It's going to make red rubber dust, and I do not want that on freshly painted walls! So carpet up then paint. I'm doing some decorative painting, and my graphic designer friend at work is going to give me some pointers on that. After that I get my Pottery Barn project table! Then you all can have a look. Don't hold your breath--I'm guessing you won't see a photo until September.

The good news is that I found my punchneedle and the patterns it ran off with. They were hiding behind the shelving unit. Of course!

No posts tomorrow...I'm off to Newport, RI to interview a major donor.

Just Cross Stitch Wants You!

Changes are on the way at Just Cross-Stitch. The new editor wants our opinions. Go. Take the survey. Tell them; please, tell them. I beg you!

From what I remember when I browsed the magazine in the newsstand, they are relocating JCS operations. The editor, Lorna Reeves, doesn't want to move. She's going to be taking over another magazine. With any luck she'll take Martha Bloat Lewis with her.

Ordinary Me: C

C: Cross-stitch A form of embroidery that I have done since 1988. A form of relaxation that can cause stress when I 1) start more projects than I finish 2) stitch a gift that I have to get done in a short amount of time. Overall, accounts for my low blood pressure.

Craft Room a constant source of stress because it is a big fat disorganized mess! But between my gastroenterologist appointment (things look good!) and the breast ultrasound (we still don't know because USC won't give me my films!) I did manage to move three pieces of furniture and three boxes out. I think we might take up the carpet this weekend.

Ordinary Me: B

B: Birthday Books.
Last month when the dude was opening his birthday books he said, "you always get me the books that I didn't even know I wanted to read."

Ironically, I do not take book recommendations from others.

Response

Hey, is it better if I respond to comments here, or in the comments? I do want let you know that I think about what you write in the comments, but sometimes my posts are so long without me responding to the previous post's comments... Half the time I only respond in my head, which I know does no good at all. I could dedicate one day to responding to all the comments...or something.

So, the trip to Maine is the cheap vacation because I'm going to my parents' house. I won't spend a cent, no matter how much lobster I eat (and let me tell you, it's all I'll eat when I am there)--and that even includes a trip to Yankee Cross Stitch...see the post on the last trip to Maine. My parents are very generous, and I do appreciate them. Well, I do now a lot more than I will once I've spent a week with them.

Although I have finished the March baby's sampler, he won't get it until December. And don't forget about the one that I sent two years late. And, now that I think of it, for which I have not been thanked. People. Raised, apparently, by wolves.

I'm glad that my research skills, such as they are, are appreciated. I think you think it was more work than I think it was. Remember, I spent 11 years of my life doing research. Back then I had to do way more reading and organizing that information was far more difficult. My boss would say I was just being modest (she would, she said it just yesterday). I always respond, "I think you're being generous." So thanks, everyone, for your generosity. And you know, when it comes to pumpkins...I'll do anything. One day, I may have to make a similar list for willows, my other weakness. Even after chasing down all those pumpkins, there weren't any that I felt liked I needed to add to the list, so maybe I'll be safe with the willow trees.

As for being queen of lists, I thought it would be funny to write a blog that was just lists. Of course people beat me to it.

Pumpkins!

Adrienne of Martini Made e-mailed me to ask about pumpkin cross-stitch patterns: where could she find them, and what were my favorites

I'm sure I'm not revealing any industry secret when I direct you all to Hoffman Distributing's website. Hoffman is the world's "leading" cross-stitch pattern distributor. They don't have everything--most of the designers they carry are American, they don't carry all of the American designers, or even the whole of each designer's oeuvre. Still, they've got a lot of it. You can search their catalog three ways--by designer, by keyword, and by category.

I did a keyword on pumpkins, and came up with 254 designs. That does include punchneedle designs, and some where the pumpkin was really not central to the design. I started out to find all the cross-stitch patterns that featured a pumpkin, but found myself getting distracted. Even designs called things like “Just Pumpkins” weren’t just pumpkins. Then sometimes I just didn’t like the pattern, so I didn’t include it. And because, in another life, I should have been the official listmaker of the web, I present...

The Great Pumpkin List
(all of these can be viewed at the Hoffman website)

• 4 My Boys Pumpkins Three for Thee*
• Angel Stitchin’ Country Pumpkin
• Bent Creek October Curls
• Bent Creek Autumn Snapperland
• Bent Creek Pumpkin Patch
• Bent Creek Snapperville Pumpkin Farm
• Blackbird Designs Fine Collection (October)
• Bushmountain Walking Mooncat Pumpkin
• By the Bay Pumpkin Hill
• By the Bay White Pumpkin Patch
• Cedar Hill Pumpkin Patch
• Cricket Collection Frost is on the Pumpkin *
• Cross Eyed Cricket Seasonings
• Ewe & Eye & Friends Pumpkin scissor companion
• Ewe & Eye & Friends Scary Pumpkin
• Elizabeth’s Designs Pumpkins
• Full Circle Designs Punkin’ Patches
• Glendon Place Pretty Pumpkins
• Heart in Hand Little Pumpkin in the Patch
• Heart in Hand Monthly mania—October
• Heart in Hand Perfect Pumpkin
• Heart in Hand Pumpkin Hill
• Heart in Hand Pumpkins (Wee Ones)
• Heart in Hand Pumpkins Galore
• Heart in Hand Pumpkins Three (Wee Ones)
• Hillside Samplings Party Pumpkin
• Hillside Samplings Pickled Pumpkin
• Homespun Elegance Pumpkins Aplenty I & II
• Homespun Elegance Shabby Chic Autumn
• JBW Designs French Country Pumpkin
• Just CrossStitch Pumpkin Patch Pillow
• Katidid Designs Too Cute for Pie
• Knotted Tree Pumpkin Topiary
• Liberty Street Checklet Pumpkin Collection
• Liberty Street Pumpkin Alley
• Lilybet Designs Pumpkin Row
• Lizzie Kate Autumn ABCs
• Lizzie Kate Plumpkin
• Mosey N Me Sitting Pretty
• Mystic Stitch Pumpkins (scary)
• Plum Pudding Harvest Thyme
• Prairie Grove Peddlar Pumpkin Time
• Samsarah Autumn Crow
• Samsarah Full Moon Pumpkin Farm
• Sekas & Co Pumpkin Row
• Sekas & Co Pumpkin Square
• Sekas & Co Watercolour Pumpkin Patch
• Sisters & BF Thanks Be To God
• Sisters & BF Punkin’ Head
• Sisters &BF Autumn Thanks
• Sisters &BF Button Borders: Pumpkins *
• Sunflower Seed Celtic Pumpkin
• Sweetheart Tree Pumpkin Patch
• Trail Creek Farm Pumpkin Love
• Twisted Threads Pumpkin Gingham
• Whimsey and Wit Pumpkin Pie

This list makes my small pumpkin patch, which includes just over 20 patterns, seem much more normal. I don't even own half of these patterns!

If you would like to own some of these patterns, and your LNS won't order them for you, Elegant Stitch has a shopping cart where you can shop Hoffman through them. (Elegant Stitch processes the orders, so it may take a little extra time.) They'll give you 20% off your order.

Also, I once stitched a Little River freebie "Harvest Moon" (very cute, companion piece to "Welcome to the Pumpkin Patch") which I cannot find anywhere! While I was looking, I did find a pumpkin freebie from Homespun Elegance.

Just to prove that Hoffman doesn't carry everything, these patterns are in my collection but not on the Hoffman site:

• 4 My Boys Autumn Square
• Heart's Content French Harvest
• Hillside Samplings Jack O' Lantern (hardanger)
• Historic Needlework Guild Seasonal Pins Two
• Marilynn and Jackie's Collectibles Ribbon Pumpkin**
• Sheepish Designs Scarry (sic) Wabbit
• Threadbear Creations Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater
• Twisted Threads Sweetie Peetie Pumpkin
• Twisted Threads Itty Bitty Trio of Pumpkins (This is OOP. I did find it for sale online.)
• Window Garden Designs Pumpkin Sampler

Go forth and stitch pumpkins, friends!

*A favorite of mine.

** Could not find in an online store.

Encyclopedia of Me

Cassi over at Bella Dia has created a meme based on Amy Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. Her book begins: "I have not survived against all odds. I have not lived to tell. I have not witnessed the extraordinary. This is my story" and "devolves" into a list of ordinary items that make up her ordinary life.

A: Amherst Middle School I was in fifth grade when we moved to Amherst, NH, where my parents still live. That's Amherst pronounced am'urst, and named for Jeffery Amherst, First Baron Amherst, an officer in the British army. We never learned about him in school because people associate him with the first written account of germ warfare in North America. Although he may not have come up with the idea of giving small pox infected blankets to the Indians, he did put it down on paper. There are many things I remember from Amherst Middle School:

• Contracting for a grade--we'd tell the teacher what we planned to do, I seem to recall the project had something to do with "Ten Who Dared," and what grade we wanted for it. I was too shy to ask for an A so I asked for (and got) an A-
• Being one of the few people who didn't get to choose a "French name" for French class--it already was
• Mr. Arvanitis, our algebra teacher who was in the Guiness Book of World Records for number of thumb push-ups
• When Alan Cunningham, a perceived troublemaker, told Mr. Pena he felt sick and Mr. Pena wouldn't let him go to the bathroom. Alan ended up vomiting into his own hands. These things stay with you
• The first "boy-girl" party I went to and hearing the Talking Heads for the first time
• My first girl-boy party with kissing at Nancy O'Neil's house
• The week-long "outward bound" type camps we went to
• Mrs. Miley, who taught awesome science classes--it's where I learned critical thinking. Once she was angry we used the word "made/make" too much, so we had to come up with synonyms. I could hardly think of any, but I was the only girl to get 105% on her science final
• Playing "mercy" with Joey Garaffa, on whom huge crush...and while on the subject of crushes, Jack Kelleher's eyes. That was the first time the fact a boy was not so bright really came into play--Jack "asked me out" three times over my life in Amherst, and for some reason, I always said no. Poor Jack.
• Chuck Pothier burning the croutons in home ec. We had told him to watch them. He watched the ones on top of the stove

If that's not ordinary life, I'm not sure what is.

I have promised a pumpkin post...it's coming tonight.