Pizza and Beer

This is the tube hat that I've been working on. I have dreads, so this holds em all together up and out of the way. I used a combination of Lambs Pride, Manos, Chunky yarns, and bunch of random stuff I've had lying around. It was a quick fun crochet project, next time I'll probably make it a little bigger to accommodate all my big fat hair! Looking at it now it looks kind of like a deflated lampshade....

The good things in life really must include homemade pizza shaped like hearts, home brewed beer, and newly finished hats! This is a pizza that Truckman and I made earlier tonight, caramelized onions with red and green peppers, garlic, sauce, pepperoni, and yes a big old pile of shredded cheddar cheese. I got a Birthday present last year of the pizza stone that this was baked on which has made all the difference in the quality of the pizza. Oh, and there's a little parmesan on the top to give it a golden crunch. Mmm it was tasty, and gone in about 20 minutes between the two of us. As for the home brewed beer I don't have any pictures of that to show you, maybe another time. 

I whipped out a couple new compositions today, one in a new open tuning called Terra Patch, a traditional Hawaiian Slack Key guitar tuning, and a flamenco like piece. I've never been one for complaining about my nails breaking, except for when it comes to guitar, my middle finger nail split down the middle and I now have much less of a nail to wail on strings with. I really need to find an effective nail strengthening procedure.

I bought the soundtrack to Once today, a great movie that I saw for the first time back in the fall, check it out, great music and good acting. A creative indie film, made on a low budget, with a very true to life feel.

Needle Needed

I received a gift at Christmas time, the best sort which for me should always consist of a nice stack of records. Or at least music to listen to in one form or another. In the stack I got Chick Corea, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Emerson Lake and Palmer, some really great finds made by my dad who was out on a pre Christmas record scouting errand when he came across these. Check out "The Monk Institute" in the link above.

    

I'm quite excited to listen to them, but do not yet have the proper needle on my record player. It worked for a short while and then died a slow painful death and now needs repairing. I think all tried and true record players need repairing at one point or another. More often than not it seems.

     

I've been furthering some guitar study with this book here "Flamenco Guitar Method Book 1" Great cd to go along with it to help with exercises, and there are very good, and detailed descriptions. I'm almost done with the first lesson, my fingers are really feeling the strain of learning new things, and I don't want to over do it. There is also a long list in the back of the book running off names of some influential flamenco musicians through the ages that I have to look up in the next day or so. 

   I'm feeling the fruits of the flamenco labor though! I'm experiencing some new bursts of creative energy in a totally different style. Thats the most enjoyable thing in playing guitar for me!

Orange Rumples

This is a picture of "Joe's Scarf" also titled "Orange Rumples" which is a Birthday present suspended in a serious state of delay. Hopefully this warm toasty gift will be delivered before long. If you'd like to check out more pictures you can check out my ravelry page, I've got a few up on there. As my first crochet scarf, this project took four skeins of  Berrocco Ultra Alpaca yarn and more than a few hours of labor, hopefully Joe G. will be pleased.

    Today when temperatures were lifted again (thank you weather gods) from the lovely 18 degreees below zero that we've been having, it felt perfectly appropriate to wear a simple sweatshirt and fingerless gloves outside. I can only imagine living in the upper midwest. Bless em and their cold toes. 

I've been marveling at this new site. It's called The Selby, (Todd Selby) and all photographs are of peoples living spaces. Artists, designers, crafts people, musicians, and all the places that they inhabit. The images provide small snipets into these peoples lives and are very inspiring to look at for fun and for decorating ideas and general creativity. 

Truckman and I watched a good documentary last night called 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama. A man sets off into Tibet on a shoestring budget to make a film and decides to attempt getting an interview with the Dalai Lama. Beautiful scenery, some obviously horriffic brutality of the Tibetan people, and much laughter and wisdom from the Dalai Lama. We enjoyed his happiness and frankness about humanity, peace, human relationships, and simple wisdom.

 Which leads me to this story...

Several weeks ago I was standing in line at a pharmacy at a huge chain store which I'm not proud of. I had had a disturbing argument with someone and all I could think about was how angry I was (this was just before New Years, and my plans were seemingly being ruined before my very eyes!) and I was festering there as I arrived at a line of no less than 15 people waiting for drugs at the pharmacy. All of a sudden I look over and there are two monks traditional dress on, walking through the shampoo aisle. Holding nothing in their hands, moving quickly, I only saw their backs, and their shaved heads, and then they were gone. 

   I took that as a sign, and decided to calm down. I started laughing at myself and felt an instant sense of relief.

 I have no doubt that they showed up for me, and maybe a few other people in the store that night, and man I was glad they did.

    

Inventory

This past weekend I helped out doing inventory at our local yarn shop. Many hours (not as long as some) un stacking, counting, and then re-stacking gobs of yarn. The picture here is of the mission falls yarn. I'm eventually going to make a scarf out of the deep red color pictured. Thebeautiful green sweater that you can only see half of is a design of Norah Gaughn who I love, but do not have the skills yet to knit anything of her design! The picture does not do her design justice so check out the links. 

   The Truckman and I are painting a room in his house together. A simply awful blue put there by the previous resident is horid! This person was a very un-skilled painter and managed to get dark blue paint on the rug, the ceiling which has grout on it, the wooden door, just everywhere. They also managed to paint over stickers and make it a miserable mess to repare. I beg you, if you are painting a room in the place where you live, either do it right, or let the resident do it! 

So we're slowly transitioning this horriffic scene to a lovely pale green color. I'll put up some before and after shots when it's finished. It would be too awful to only show you the before pictures!

An Oldy but a Goody

I decided to post a of picture here (but also on my ravelry account) of a scarf that I made a while ago. It's from Kids Knitting by Melanie Falick. A truely beautiful book with projects on how to make knitted puppet washclothes, a drop shoulder sweater, a snake, knitting needles, bean bags, all in beautiful colors and designs. I've always enjoyed looking at it.

   I helped out at the local yarn shop doing inventory over the weekend. Perhaps I'll post some shots of how neat and tidy I made some of those shelves when I was done with them! We all worked in teams, calculating and counting,Thanks to my mom for being my hard working number taking team mate we got it all done! We all had fun discovering the hidden yarns in the shop that we never knew existed. 

    I've got my eye on a few things now. I've set my sights on yarn for making the Williams Pullover Sweater and a pair of socks with some leftover yarn I have from making a hat for a friend. Hopefully my mother will be showing me how to do the latter!

I've acquired a renewed thirst in mystery's that I haven't had a for a while I got this and this at the library over the weekend and today. No I have no shame when it comes to mystery's, it's giving me something do when I go to the gym. One is on tape and one is a book. I also downloaded a few podcasts from the long list on crafsanity. Just find the descriptions on the long sidebar on her site, and then I just looked up the number on her listing under podcasts on i-tunes and downloaded the ones I wanted. I started with Amy Butler who's amazing fabrics you can find here.

Good and Neat

I have embarked upon cleaning a large portion of my living space, getting rid of clothes, books, art supplies, all things that were once useful to me, but are now finding their way to new homes and new people who will actually enjoy them. The main reason for the purge of items was to clean up my practice space for music. I have a spot to record, keep my instruments, music books, stereo's, mic stands, you name it there is a lot to fit. Here is a shot of my newly organized music area.

        This is a handmade slide that Truckman made for me out of a beer bottle neck. He sanded it, ground it down all by hand. He cut the neck from the main part of the bottle using a sharp stone and scratching the glass in a circle till it just popped off. This part would be much easier if you had a glass cutter. It produces a very nice warm sounding slide when played on a resonator guitar. I enjoy using it because it's the real thing!

This is perhaps the best late night snack I can think of. Candied ginger with green  apple slices and peanut butter. I suggest you try it if you can get your hands on some good salty peanut butter (Teddie is one of my favorite brands) and dried ginger slices with big granulated sugar crystals.

I bought more yarn to finish crocheting a scarf. My very first crocheting project. Check out the link to Berocco's great color pallet of Ultra Alpaca yarns. I'll post some pictures of the scarf later. 

We're gearing up for a bunch of snow here later today and into tomorrow. Lots of knitting to happen in the next day or so I hope when we get snowed in!

   

Reminiscing in Tempo

Last night I sat by the woodstove polishing a few pairs of leather boots and shoes. A pair of workboots that I have were getting quite cracked so a little saturation helped. I remember as a child watching my father brushing a pair of grey suede shoes with a brush and special polish and seeing them shine when he was done. This memory probably sticks because I only saw it happen once or twice. He's not really a shoe polish kind of man anyway. 

   This is a picture of Bucky. The stovetop resident who is permanently curled up in iron form on the top of the woodstove all winterlong, steaming water out of the holes in his back. Deemed "Bucky" for the several holes the evaporating water comes out of that look like they were painfully made of buckshot. Thankfully this story is nowhere near true and this water holder makes our lungs a little happier doing the winter months when it gets dry from wood heat in the house.

   Truckman (as he shall henceforth be named) and I watched one of the many movies in the Ken Burns Series Jazz. I had seen the whole documentary when it aired on PBS several years ago and even have the cd set that sold as an accompaniment to the movies. This episode #4 "The True Welcome" had Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Art Tatum, and a host of others. Footage of the lindyhop, big dance halls in New York and Chicago and venues everywhere in between litter the screen in depression era scenery, deppressing and also beautifully decadent at the same time. There are some romping images from The Savoy, the only racially integrated dance hall in New York city at the time. Women (and sometimes men) being thrown over the heads of their partners in true swing dance style gusto.

   Theres a beautiful interview with a couple that danced there in their youth at the Savoy, and they have some great stories. I highly recommend watching even just one of the movies from the series if you like history, good music, and inspirational stories.

    The title of this post comes from the title of a song the Duke Ellington wrote that's featured in the film. He wrote it as a tribute to his mother when she passed away.

The First Post

Ah, the first post, the classic moment where what I write here will go down in the evolution of this blog as number one. The surely uncomfortable moment where you have pressed the button to take you all the way back to the beginning of the archives in the hopes of finding out some secret tidbit that you haven't come to yet in the dissecting of this on going piece of writing.

So if you are reading from the back forward, let me just say welcome! I extend this to you the reader and also to my innermost self that desires to share parts of my life with others that I do not know in person. I hope that this experience will be a rewarding one on your part as well as for me on my end.

If you look at the date on this post, surely you can see that this must have been sparked by some new years resolution gone awry, the lofty hopes of a person seeking contact in the grossly digital age we're in, and yes you are right! On all counts I am drawn to the idea of throwing a chunk of myself out into the ether to see what happens.

As for Ya want a peanut? A question I asked one day of some folks at our local knitting shop. I apparently declared the question in the most offensive, non generous kind of way, as I held out a large bucket of salted peanuts for people to share. With slumped shoulders and wet snowy pants and big snow boots and a cold nose I guess I appeared to not want to give them up, and that anyone who dared to take a peanut from the container was gonna get a fist in the face.
I'll just say no bloody noses were to be had, and the idea for this writing project began...