I went to Dallas - crocheted flowers, Mutant Leeches, and Cupcakes!

OK, until the last few days we haven't had much snow around here, but it seemed as good an excuse as any to explain why I haven't updated the blog all month.  Best-laid plans, and all that, as Robert Burns (whose birthday was celebrated last Sunday) would say.

In the meantime, I finished the hat I was knitting at the turn of the year:

Sadly, it is too big for me.  I do have quite a bit of yarn left, hopefully enough to make the mittens and a new hat.  A friend tried it on and said it fits her so she wants it, but I don't know if she will buy it or just wants it gifted.  The hat might go into my Etsy shop.

I donated a reflective yarn hat to the silent auction at a friend's weeklong storytelling and arts event. As you can see, it's neon yellow and has threads that reflect.  The hat can be less pointy if pulled down, and the bottom edge can roll up into double thickness if wanted.

I went to Dallas to see "The Cupcake Conspiracy" and "The Attack of the Killer Mutant Leeches" (one of the Pocket Sandwich Theater's infamous popcorn-tossing melodramas), and while there stopped by the Crochet Texas! monthly meeting and learned how to make flowers from buttons.  These are the ones from the class; the two circled ones are mine:

We got to eat cupcakes of course!  Local bakers provided them at every performance of Rover Dramawerks' "The Cupcake Conspiracy."  My friend Kim made these, and the Cherry Cheesecake ones were very yummy:

So yummy, we said, that people come from Connecticut to eat them!

Resolutions for 2015

I've been thinking about whether to post them, and why not?  I did last year, and it's not as if I have thousands of people reading the blog and keeping me accountable, so there's less pressure to actually DO them.  And it's fun to keep track, sometimes, and figure out where I am in terms of what I think I could accomplish this year.

So for this year, the three resolutions I am making are:

1. To keep the blog more up-to-date, posting at least once a month.  I know, it didn't happen last year, but that's a good reason to re-use it, to see if I can make the goal this year.  Once a month isn't horrendous.  I know where I fall down is because I want to use pictures, and that means resizing them and sometimes other adjustments to get Blogger to like the arrangement I want to show.
2. Keeping a record of everything I knit, crochet, etc.  I've done that sometimes in the past, and there are usually partial records as I blog, or post on Facebook, or keep records for my taxes, or get pictures of people wearing what I have sent.  It's interesting sometimes to keep a real record and look back to see how many of what I have made, or even just finished, in the year.
3. Put together the standing computer desk I bought, when I hurt my hip and then annoyed a back muscle and sitting was painful.  I've used a kluge when I needed to stand and work, in part because I have to clear and partially re-arrange my office area to put the desk where it will work with the rest of the items I have.  I'm well and have this enforced vacation from work, may as well put it to use!

So far this year, I spent yesterday organizing things in my crawlspace, and the extra area I use for yarn storage overflow.  I am trying to get the overflow to fit into the crawlspace, and might succeed, in part because I pulled out a lot of yarn to donate to my father's church, where a group of ladies knits and crochets items for shelters, the kids who come to the afterschool tutoring program, and so on.  A great place for odd balls of yarn to end up, or yarn from projects that never quite got started.

I also started a hat for me.  I decided that I want my first new project of the new year to be something for me, and special, and the hat I planned to wear this winter came out a bit big on me so I put it into my Etsy shop instead.  Since I've gotten into entrelac in the round over the holiday, beginning with this mitt:

Not quite one ball makes one mitt.  Yes, I will finish the other!

I decided to find a hat pattern and use some yarn I have in the stash.  In part it is because I found the yarn in my cleaning, and decided to use it for a hat and mittens for me.  I noticed that the yarn ("mystery bump" from Tidal Yarns) has very long colour changes and I thought that instead of making plain items, it would be fun to take advantage of that and make them in entrelac.  Here's what I have so far:

Not much done because I was busy organizing on January 1st.

The second hank, at the top, and whatever is left over from the hat-ball will become mittens.  The yarn is soft and squishy and I am enjoying knitting it.

My cordless drill needs charging, so I guess it's back to knitting.  Or maybe I'll replace the bulb in the entryway ceiling light.  And there might be a couple upstairs.  I like quick-to-finish chores!  Then I'll get back to knitting.

Reviewing the resolutions

It's the last day of 2014, and a good time to review how I did with this year's resolutions:

• Each month I will try doing one new thing.  And it cannot be a variation on something I have done before - snorkeling in new waters, or going for brunch to a restaurant where I've been only for supper, or sorting food donations at the food pantry at whose mobile distribution trucks I've volunteered for several years.  This might take some real thought.
• I will try to keep this blog more up-to-date, hopefully blogging at least once per month.
• I am going to update either my kitchen or my upstairs bathroom.

In order:

• Kinda OK.  Look at the blog posts through August as I kept track, somewhat.  I think I fell off in the later parts of the year, for the same reason as:
• OK until August, and then crickets.  I know what stalled me: I needed to organize the pictures for the last post.  And life got busy - I stage-managed a local community theatre's production of "The Producers", and traveled, and got involved with fiber things, and traveled, and was busier at MakeHartford, and ......  You get the idea.
• Nope.  Got busy.  And decided to spend money on a certification course for information security systems professional, which my job promised to pay me back for and then didn't.  So I am saving up the money again.  And this summer, when it would have made sense to do painting because I could leave the windows open - I was outside.  A lot.  Hiking some, riding a bike some, enjoying a good summer.

So I will probably re-run at least one of the above for 2015.  I could probably re-run all of them and see how I do in the new year, but it's more fun to mix things up, at least officially.  I'll think while I am working at First Night Hartford (Wadsworth Atheneum, and then I think City Hall unless I am needed elsewhere) and then friends' party (parties?) and so on which one will be the choice to officially repeat, and which other things I might do in 2015.

How did your year end?

Smoking Ice (for MakeHartford makerspace)

I am a member of the MakeHartford makerspace, and on the first Wednesday of every month we do a Show-and-Tell event.  This month's started when I posted a link on the MH Facebook page showing how to make a carbonation rig.  Our newsletter editor was very interested and declared the theme for August, and said he would create the rig.

What could I do that would be cool and demonstrable for a crowd without actual onsite cooking?  Lacto-fermention is one thing, at least the setup with a tasting of finished products, then I saw an article about making smoked ice for mixed drinks.  Really??!  Yes, really, and I knew that this would intrigue people.

When talking to people about my intention, the reactions were great.  Once they realized that I was not talking about

• Dry ice (which does smoke nicely on its own)
• Consuming street drugs
• Some slang for excellence at winter sports

they became genuinely puzzled because of course smoking involves HOT while ice needs COLD, and the two seem completely incompatible.

NOTE - this is a holding article so I can put the link into my handout for Show-and-Tell.  Stay tuned for the full post with photos of my process, and some reaction shots.

Go-Go Dancing and Knitting and Crocheting Things

It may actually surprise a few readers that I did NOT do these at the same time!  Last night - so just barely into August - I went to a party at a local venue.  Theme was "Deep Blue Rendezvous" and part of the inspiration was The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, so one of the costume suggestions was light blue clothing and a red watchcap.  I told a friend I would lend one to him, then realized I needed one for me.

And of course, far be it for me to have a plain red watchcap:

That's based upon the Trilobite pattern, but with a repeat of three instead of four.  It took less time to knit than you might think, at least once I got the cast-on number right.  Most of it was knit on Saturday, finishing about 6:00pm.

We had a LOT of fun dancing to The Aquatudes, which turns out to be one of four surf bands in Connecticut.  Fun stuff!  There were DJs in another room and after The Aquatudes finished, we danced there.  Typical of a lot of the parties I've been to here, whether you have a partner or not is fairly irrelevant. There was a Poseidon, a sailor, several persons in swim gear (including an inflatable stingray that was passed around), and lots of people in red knit caps, including the friend at right who's also wearing one of mine.  Several members of a local burlesque troupe mingled, often dancing on boxes of flashing lights like go-go dancers, and when the hour waned and the crowd thinned, I was pulled up on a box for a bit.  Yep, that would be my new thing for August, and completely unplanned by me - go-go dancing.  Even, go-go dancing with members of a burlesque troupe!

Of course, that was not my only knitting.  I finished a cotton top I'd started a couple months back, just in time to wear to brunch today.  Not entirely happy with it so it may head to the thrift store after a wash, but I want to wear it because this group saw me knitting on it at previous brunches.  I didn't get it done sooner because I've been sidetracked by mostly charity knitting and crocheting, such as these items, which I wrote about on the charity's blog, especially about the yarn in one of the singleton hats:

Eighteen wool yarn and sock yarn baby hats ready to mail.

Easy crocheted caps with earflaps for warmth and ties to stay on.

These five hats came from two balls of Patons Classic Wool.
The center one is a favourite pattern of mine from KnitPicks.

"Onesie" hats, unlike any of the others, mostly doubled yarn.

Pairs of hats - same yarn used, although the center one is a
different pattern, not the standard watchcap.

The crocheted hats pattern is a Lion Brand one, and the hat in the centre of the picture of pairs is based upon a Lion Brand pattern but done in a single weight of sock yarn.  The others are two or three strands together - three of sock yarn, or one sock yarn plus a DK or sportweight wool - in a basic watchcap pattern on 56 or 64 stitches.


Do you remember back in May when I knit four black-and-grey sweaters for boys in orphanages in Kazahkstan?  I now have photos of the delivery.  Only three of the boys wore their gifts when posing for the camera:

Music in My Life (an essay)

I have stage fright.  It's part of the reason I am much happier being backstage in the theatre world.  It's also something I want to overcome, at least to some extent, so I have started telling stories.  This involves standing up in front of people, mostly strangers, and talking and not fainting.  There are a lot of storytelling events in the Hartford area - Other People's Stories, The MOuTH, Speak Up, and Syllable Series, where I read the following essay.  The theme for July was "Music" and featured a mini-concert by Bandshes.

Music in My Life

© 2014 Margo Lynn Hablutzel

Music has always been a part of my life, although I am incapable (despite lessons in the standard instruments - piano, flute, violin, and guitar – and some less-standard ones like recorder) to create any myself.  I don’t sing well, and appreciate the fact that when there are a lot of us making “a joyful noise unto the Lord” She doesn’t seem to hear the off notes.  There are times when I can’t even follow a clapping pattern that the rest of the audience seems to reproduce as easily as breathing.  But I enjoy music, have found myself singing in the shower or when alone, and can’t imagine life without my own personal soundtrack.

Most of the rest of my family plays music – classical, jazz, ragtime, Christmas carols which we learn to sing (or approximately so) in languages ranging from English and Spanish to German and Latin and Hawai’ian.  As a child I went to local pubs to hear folksingers and Irish musicians, enjoying a bowl of stew or pint of rootbeer and feeling very grown up because my rootbeer came in a real pint mug, until the owner announced that family hours were over and all underaged persons had to go home.  My brother’s first photography jobs, when he was in junior high, were in those pubs, taking publicity photos of the performers.

My mother also raised us with musical theatre.  A performer from a young age, she could sing and even when I didn’t know the musical itself, I knew the songs, even lesser ones such as “Buckle Down, Winsocki” which I thought was our local NFL team’s other theme song.  As I grew into a theatre rat on my own terms, safely backstage where I didn’t have to remember lines or wear makeup, directors found it odd that I knew the score to musicals but not the book, or script.  Scripts are not on the cast recordings.

I learned about pop in high school and about rock in college.  My mother hated that, calling rock music “noise” and “unmelodic” as if we were twenty years in the past.  I was surprised to find out recently that she liked the Beatles and ABBA.  OK, I’m also a little embarrassed about the ABBA part.  I inherited most of my father’s record collection – although I’m not sure he knows about it – which includes The Rolling Stones and the Who and Lynyrd Skynrd and sometimes I wonder if my mother would enjoy the folkie sounds of The Band.

I’ve sampled most other genres.  There are those with little more than a beat you can dance to; those you can whistle while you work; and the ones that require you to roll down the windows and crank the car stereo and peel out of the parking lot and hope for a long stretch of highway ahead.  I learned that sea shanties are perfect for calming a fussy baby, who luckily doesn’t care how badly you sing as long as you don’t hit too many clinkers.  I’ve looked at how music and art intersect, and music and science, and how people make music out of everything from volcanic eruption patterns to birds sitting on overhead wires.  Music took me abroad, as I accompanied a choir (my Spanish language and herding skills more valued than anything musical) to Argentina and New Zealand.

One of my friends, who is a movie reviewer, jokes about pocket orchestras that are responsible for music in movies when there is no other obvious source, especially when a character seems to have a leit motif.  If you know Anna Russell’s summary of theRing Cycle, she translates that as “signature tune.”  I sometimes wish I had a pocket orchestra, so I don’t have to change a CD, jump over a track, or change radio stations when ads come on.  My pocket orchestra would know my moods and when to change from one genre to another, or would surprise me by following Chumbawumba and Bruce Springsteen with Ravel or Scott Joplin as my brain sometimes does when I am roller skating as a way of blowing some carbon off the plugs when my brain needs a rest.  Music rests my brain.  And music charges my heart, giving me energy, hope, joy.  “Pictures at an Exhibition,” “Yfory”, “Oye Como Va,” “Kiss Me Deadly”, “Young”.  I can’t play a Chopin etude, but I can make one my ringtone.

Some of my family members play or sing professionally, others only for the pleasure of family and friends.  I will always appreciate my aunt, who performed with symphonies and opera house orchestras around the world, assuring me many years ago that audience members are essential to the musicians’ life and my inability to create music of my own was no mar on my personality.  So I’ll happily stay in the audience, appreciate the music, buy CDs, support the musicians, and try to keep my volume down when I cannot help singing along.

Testing - testing - checking in

So much for my resolution to keep up the blog!  I kept thinking that I needed to write up what I was doing in June, and then I got busy doing it, or something else, and never got around to writeups.  Now it's the second half of July, and it's been two months since I wrote.  I'll try to do a bit of catching-up.

I've been a bit better about doing new things, though.  I cannot talk about the May one as it's in progress and not ready for public consumption.  June was a mixture and more of taking things I had done in the past into new directions.  My favourite thing in June was a road trip I took to Dallas, Missouri, and Kansas.  Well, I flew to Dallas, then between Dallas and Kansas City, but I put a lot of mileage onto rental cars in between.

My new July thing would be a bad fall off a bike, but I recovered (still a bit scabby) and went on the Real Ride, which was my first long bike ride that I can remember.  I did not do particularly well, definitely at the end of the pack most of the time, but I had fun and did not fail.  I walked in a few places, but rode at the end, completing the whole course.  And I turned out to be a photo op because to joke at myself and the fall I had taken, I built a costume of pool inflatables and pool noodles (complete with roll bars) and had a light-up warning sign on the back:

As you can see, I became a photo opportunity.

It was too awkward to ride in the costume, but I took the sign and attached it to my backpack so I could wear it, especially as the bike had no lights.  After the ride I promptly donated the bike I was using to a local Free Bike project, where they will work on the bike to make it more rideable (it was secondhand and not in as great shape as I'd been assured at the bike shop), and they said they would give me a credit against a bike that comes in and doesn't meet their standards for the ones in their system.  The organizers try to keep a certain type of bike on the road, but they accept almost anything and trade or sell the others.

Since then I've been on a ride around Hartford as part of the Colt 200 activities, and that was a lot of fun. By that time I was on a Schwinn, and even though it's a bit small I've decided I love Schwinns.  Well, I've always loved Schwinns.  Maybe it's a mental thing, but when I decided I needed to get a bike, a friend let me ride on a Schwinn Hollywood and I fell in love.  I wasn't sure about buying it, and then he sold it to someone else.  [Insert sad face here.]  I fell off a Raleigh that I had on loan, and the secondhand one is a Jamis, and a bike shop tried to get me to buy a Trek that just felt uncomfortably big to me (I think it has to do with the handlebars), and the one I have now is another Schwinn and despite the size (20") I am happy again.

Another new thing for July - going up into the cupola of the Colt Armory, on one of the Colt 200 tours:

I was on the tour with my friend Rayah and her friends the Berriens.
You can see what the armory looks like in this area - dicey.

Because it is in one of the less-well-kept areas of the complex, you can't just wander in, and tours are rare.




Views up there are great.  That's the Connecticut River behind me.  In 1854 it flooded, including the then-present factory, so Sam Colt built a series of dikes to hold back the water in the future to protect his equipment.  You can see a panorama of the flood at the Wadsworth Atheneum, and the panel with the Colt factory includes a tiny rowboat with people in it who are factory workers being rescued.