Mardi Gras in Hartford

Fat Tuesday in New Orleans was cold (for New Orleans) and raining.  In Hartford, it was cold (starting the day at +3(F) and getting up to a balmy +28-30(F) by evening) and sunny until shortly before parade time.  But we stepped off and had our own, if smaller, carnival:

  

There are professional photos, of course (a nonprofessional has already posted a set if you want to see more, plus there's a commentary at the FB site which I believe is public); mine are from the start and end, because I was too busy participating in the middle.  I dressed warmly in layers that were either brightly coloured or in Mardi Gras shades of gold, purple, and green.  All the instruments, things to throw, and so on were distributed before I got there (had hoped to get out of work early, but of course not) so I just danced along, waving at people with my bright, woolly mittens, and wearing a glitter mask.  It was cool when a busload of people waved back.

My friend Lauren got there in time to be one of the walking skeletons:

I did get a couple bits of video with my new camera, so the resolution is better and you can even hear sound, although my camera work still leaves a LOT to be desired (and I have to remember not to dance whilst trying to record):

The second one shows something you definitely would not see at the New Orleans Mardi Gras parade!

Afterwords, off to String Thing and Origami at the Hartford Makerspace, which due to lack of people other than us turned into a bunch of trigonometry, testing of newly donated projection equipment, and playing a bit with something called SÅND.

I did struggle this year about my commitment for Lent.  A lot of people look on it as a time to give up something, and often I have done that, and didn't feel like giving up something I've given up in the past.  Others look on it as a time to commit to do something spiritual or giving back to the community, which I already do quite a lot.  I thought of committing to read a psalm a day, or a chapter in Exodus, but with rehearsals for a show I'm dubious about having the time.

So my official commitment, which came about serendipitously because I ran out of bread and tortillas on Tuesday, is to not eat breadly items or similar baked goods.  This should provide some interesting opportunities for creative cooking, not to mention whittling down my store of noodly things.

And I realized that for the second year in a row, I missed out on eating a paczki.

February Resolution Report

Obviously my resolution to update the blog more often didn't get much traction in February, as I just hit the minimum requirement, but that is primarily because of my First Time Activity - I went to Israel!  Not only was I madly busy getting things done before I left (including a couple of business trips and co-hosting a MAJOR community event) but I was mostly offline whilst there.  Although Israel is a very wired country, the hotels had limited Internet capability unless you brought your own device, which I did not.  I rented an Israeli cellphone which was definitely not a smartphone, and I didn't take a laptop or tablet. I wanted to travel light and saw no need (since I had Communion of Dreams on MP3 and a book on actual paper) to bring anything electronic with me.

The trip was marvelous, fascinating, amazing - the last being the byword of the rabbi who led us and became one of the catchwords of the trip - and when I figure out how to get the photos off my new camera I'll write a few posts.  I did take a composition book with me and wrote pages every night, or some mornings, trying to record it all so I could have a reference for blog posts and future writing, and we had a semi-official blog running that my family used to see how I was doing on the trip.  One of the cool things is that we did not focus exclusively on religious locations and activities, but geopolitics, history from an Israeli viewpoint, archaeology, and so forth.

Us in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Us in the stands of the amphitheater at Caesarea.

A friend asked if there was one thing I expect to remember in five years.  How to predict?  But off the top of my head, these things stick in the front of my memory, and in no particular order:

• Using the rooftops in Jerusalem's Old City to travel more quickly from one place to another.
• Fresh dates!  Fresh persimmons!  And eating these almost every day if we wanted them.
• The donkeys used as natural weed control in the date orchards at an organic farm on an Orthodox kibbutz.
• Hearing the sounds of gunfire and shelling in Syria as we stood on the Golan Heights.
• Buskers on Ben Yehudah Street.
• Steam rising on the Jordan River as we went out for a very early morning walk, and the plaques in the walkway containing quotes from the Bible that mention the Jordan.
• Architecture, from 1,000s of years ago to the early 20th Century.
• A partially rebuilt building in Yafo, old stones beneath and stark glass walls above.
• Learning how the Israelis have constructed many of the memorial and historic and museum sites to present a perspective or engage all the senses and emotions, not just as a static "this is here" location.
• When "The Silver Platter" poem clicked home for me, as we walked down (in reverse of the usual order, due to persons in our group with mobility issues) from Mt. Herzl to Yad Vashem, and I saw this quote from Chaim Weizmann in 1947, not long after the UN’s decision to partition Palestine:  "No state is ever handed on a silver platter... The partition plan does not give the Jews but an opportunity."

Us at Herzl's tomb at the top of Mt. Herzl.

Our guide frequently used the phrase "It's complicated" to explain the history and how Israelis have grappled with the events that shaped the country - both in ancient history and even until today - and that seems to be spot-on for so much of what we saw and learned.

One thing I did take away is the absolute, unshakable belief of any Israeli that if they are invaded, they will repel the invaders.  They know there will be a cost, but as more than one said "when it is your family behind you, you aren't going to move."

View of Israel from a former Jordanian fort.

Our guide is a tank commander, so of course we went to Latrun.

More about the trip when I have time to compose the entries and include my own photos.  I appear in several of these photos because they are from the blog I mentioned above, and were taken by others.  I had some other almost-firsts in February, will talk more about the non-trip February in another post.

How my resolutions did in January

Of the three resolutions I posted for 2014, one needs to wait for warmer weather, not to mention more time, so I am reporting on the other two.  I haven't updated the blog since early January, but I did three updates then, so while I am not doing as well as I would like for the second resolution I will consider it met.  I should have done an update later in the month, if only to miss on having to do so many catching up now.

The harder one is the first resolution, to do a new thing that isn't a variation on an old thing.  For January I am counting the "Get a Clue!" tour of the Mark Twain House & Museum, because I've never done a proper tour of the house, and I've never done a mystery tour like that.  My partner and I didn't win, technically, since she was sure the culprit was a different character (it came down on our chart to two, and she picked) but we had a lot of fun.

I did some new things that were variations on old ones, and a lot of fun too:

1. Dancing at the Creative Cocktail Hour at Real Art Ways.  I've gone dancing before - for several years was notorious at Chicago-area cons for wearing out a series of partners, since I love dancing and have good stamina - and I've been to CCH before, but never dancing there.  A large part of that is that I am shy about going out on a dance floor solo, although I am willing to stay there if my partner dances off.  The nice thing about RAW is that nobody cares if you dance solo, or in a pair, or a group, and the gender makeups of any of them.
2. Taking a class from Franklin Habit at Vogue Knitting Live! in New York.  Again, done plenty of classes at fiber conferences, but never that one and never from Franklin.  It was on tessellations and a lot of fun, and I got a bonus because in the "work on this for a while" part of the class Franklin discussed something he figured out about charting a different technique, and all of a sudden the penny dropped and I figured out why I couldn't get that technique when I'd tried it before.  I had felt very stupid about it but Franklin's mind works the way mine does on this topic and now it makes sense!  I am going to tell him so when I sent a picture of the piece I am knitting from my classwork.

Also in the variation-on-themes items, I have joined the Make Hartford makerspace and participated in an event there other than the Grand Opening; and I am now the "Leader of Logistics and Exchequery" for Welcome to Bohemia! shows (and related ones such as last weekend's Studio N111 fundraiser), which mostly means I make sure the stuff needed onsite is ready to go, especially at the front desk, and run the door; and keep track of things so the artsy people can have fun.

Stuff like this:

My grandmother's vests - Holidays 2013

As promised in my last post (which I have now updated with the totals of items I knit and crocheted for charity in 2013), in this one I tell about the vests I made for my grandmother.

This is a longstanding tradition.  I am not sure for how many years I have given her a vest for Christmas.  We see her for Thanksgiving (Christmas celebrated with my SIL's family) and leave her Christmas gifts, wrapped, for her to open when appropriate.  One year, I wrapped the vest with a big book of crossword puzzles, which my grandmother loves to work, and she was disappointed that the gift I left was clearly too heavy to be a vest.  Another year, I asked in the fall what she wanted, and my grandmother said that she didn't need a vest, she had plenty.........then in November she whether I was giving her a vest that year because she was "cold" (I think it was in the mid- to high 60's(F)), and when I protested that she had told me in September that she didn't need one and I wasn't sure I had time to make one, my grandmother said that I should not listen to what she says in September because it's not yet cold enough for vests!  Of course I hadn't listened to her, and she did get a vest that year.

This year, I found some really fun brown self-striping yarn, and tried to make a zig-zag with it that was just not cooperating.  The weekend before Thanksgiving, I realized I needed to do something else or there would be no vest.  A quick search and I found a pattern for an afghan square that was done in three colours, which I translated into (trust me, the camera doesn't take quality pictures, and yes, I'm replacing it) just two - peach and rust:

I made up the rest of the vest around it.  Then I wrapped it and left it for Chanukah, which overlapped with Thanksgiving this year.  My SIL and I agreed to give my grandmother one gift for each night of Chanukah, since we would be there for several and she loves getting gifts.  The best item she opened while we were there was a one-pound Snickers® bar.  My grandmother didn't open the package with the vest before we left, but I heard several times about how wonderful it was after she did, even to the point that she had to completely change the outfit she planned to wear to supper that night so she could show off the vest.
The full-length picture has colours that are closer to actual, and the sides are straight despite what you see in this photograph:

When I got home, after finishing some of the other items I needed to get done, I returned to the original vest and decided to do a pattern I have done before, which is simply columns, and straight across on the back.  I like both ways the yarn worked out:

 

This close-up shows how interesting the yarn is in shorter stitch counts.  The above photos are truer to the colours, which are warm browns; the one below is rather cool and a bit washed out.  Yes, I did the front as intarsia, rather than having to sew together columns:

My grandmother sometimes wears the backs as the front, I wonder if she will do it with this vest?  This one went out just after Christmas (I'd left a gift for my grandmother to open for Christmas, never fear, and as expected she opened it on Christmas Eve - it is a scarf out of a ruffle yarn, which made me nuts trying to get it to work out properly) and I guess will be an Epiphany gift or something.  With it is a print of our family Thanksgiving portrait in a glam frame, and a note explaining that the vest was just included as padding in the package.  ;)

I really like the yarn and am sad it is a nameless millend so I cannot get more for another project.  I do have some that will probably turn into hat and mittens.  Since I tend to make both as seamless tubes, it will be interesting to see how differently the colour patterns turn out in those items.

20 Hats and a Blanket

Those who know me will not be surprised that in the last days of 2013, I finished a bunch of items for various charities.  OK, I know that in the past I have designated the week between Christmas and New Year's for "selfish knitting" = something for me, and I did mostly finish a crocheted bolero for myself while on my Christmas trip to North Carolina.  But I had a number of items OTN/OTH and decided to fill a box and.........

For the Children's Comfort Tote Project, which gives a lidded plastic tote to kids in shelters and going into foster care in Maine, each of which contains new pajamas, hat, mittens, scarf, and blanket, plus toiletries and a stuffed animal, I made an afghan:

I'd had ideas about making several, but time ran short for assorted reasons.  It's a simple granny ripple done in a multicoloured yarn.

I didn't find the chemo caps dropoff point at Stitches East (where I'd received a very soft ball of orange yarn, that they asked us to use to make chemo caps, last year) earlier this fall, so I decided to send the caps to my usual recipient, PatPat's Hats.  Then with one thing and another, hats being handy for carry-around knitting, I ended up filling a box:

It contains twenty hats, mostly knit but also crocheted.  There are five pairs, where a skein or ball had enough yarn for two hats:

The two orange ones are from the yarn I received last Stitches East.  I also have ten "singles," with just one hat of a particular yarn:

Here is a closeup of the two crocheted hats with ribbons.  I did the purple one second and made the row of stitches in which I wove the ribbon taller than on the orange one, where I learned that it needs extra height to not scrunch the ribbon as much:

This is the top of the other orange hat.  I did a random cabled pattern that I made up on the fly, and I really like how it came out.  Unfortunately the light orange didn't photograph well, this is the only one I have that shows off the cabling:

The packages are received, and I am taking a bit of a break from charity items so that I can finish the bolero and work on a couple other items.  My mother loved the crocheted vest I gave my grandmother for Hanukah so much, I think I will make one for her.  I'll post a picture of it and my grandmother's Christmas vest (this year, she received a bonus) in another blog post because I have to track it down.


Update:  I thought about adding the totals of items I have knit and crocheted for various charities this year.  These are my records, there might have been more because one record just said "wool hats" but not how many:

• 11 Sweaters
• 3 scarfs (and I finished one more but didn't get it mailed in 2013)
• 2 pairs mittens
• 2 pairs socks
• 39 hats
• 3 shawls
• One afghan

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou, Y'all!

Hello from a chilly New England at the start of 2014.

I spent last night working at our First Night Hartford celebration.  Every year I've been working at the Wadsworth Atheneum for their mask-making activity, then help clean up and go to FNHHQ for my evening assignment.  This year it was selling wristbands at one of the outdoor locations; past years I have checked for wristbands at venues or sold them at City Hall.  Another woman named Megan was all event in the little shack outside the Bushnell Park Carousel, I took over from a man named Frank at 6:00pm and was there until we were told to close up about 10:30pm.  Although the event continued, people would not need wristbands after then.  It was a COLD night but we both had bundled up in layers and Megan brought a small portable heater.

Today is a beautiful brilliant blue sky and sunny, very optimistic start to the new year.  And COLD, so I am putting the microfleece sheets on my bed.  Also mostly doing "house-elf" stuff, and might get together with one of my knitting groups later.  We're still deciding.

In the interest of tradition, I left a crockpot with black-eyed peas bubbling, and ate a bowl for breakfast (I was too full of tamales, veggie wraps, and chips to eat when I got home from First Night) which may not be traditional but was tasty on a chilly morning.

Also in the interest of tradition, I made some resolutions, which I hereby announce so we can keep track of how well I do this year:

• 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.

So keep your eye on the blog to see how I do over the course of 2014.

Berlin Fair Competition Results 2013

I like to enter the local fair, which is hosted by the Lions Club and a big fundraiser of theirs as well as a number of other community groups.  It is a good, community fair full of rides, food which is bad for you but tastes SO good, and competitions for and exhibits of everything from chickens and sheep to baking and photography.

Usually life conspires so that I don't get to the fair except to drop off my items and (except for one year when a friend did the pickups) pick up my items.  Last year I had planned to spend Sunday afternoon there, but a storm moved in and they closed early, so I got there just in time to pick up my items!  This year I determined to go on Saturday night after a music event I was committed to attend.

I made it!  I rode two rides (the really wild scary ones I won't take my nieces on when we go to the North Carolina State Fair in a couple of weeks), and because I had eaten at the music event I wasn't hungry even for my favorite fried potatoes (which I learned as Texas Taters but here are called Butterfly Potatoes), but I did run into a friend who was doing guard duty at one end of one of the display buildings and spent time catching up with her.  Another friend was working hard in one of the main fried dough booths, and I snapped a couple of pictures of her, but didn't have time to say "hi" until the end because the crowds were so thick around it.

Both of my friends are skilled and enter the competitions also.  Lisa, the frycook, received a second and third in photography.  Ann, the guard, received a third in the knitted shawl category and may have had some others on display; her mother, Betty, is very accomplished and had all kinds of ribbons for her items, including shawls, socks, and a hat.

Very insanely, I decided to enter nine items.  Insane because five were baking, and they have to be turned in on Thursday, and I didn't know if work would let me have the time I needed to bake, especially with rehearsals on for "LES MISÉRABLES" so I don't have evenings free!  Also insane because two of the needlework items were not started as of the weekend.
So I expected a couple of ribbons in needlework, and maybe one in baking.  I ended up with NINE, seven of which include money prizes!  This year I am going to remember to get there in time to collect the money - I missed last year because of the early shutdown, and the year before I forgot to get the money before picking up my items.  It's not much, but it pays for yarn!

BAKERY

One thing I found interesting is that although I made these cookies from the same recipe, one took third and one took second.  Ann said it was probably because the ones I entered in the "Natural Baking" category have the pretty designs of sliced almonds on top.


 

Drop Cookies

Natural Baking

They don't include the white chocolate chips that the drop cooky entry does.  The chips are in the original recipe, which I altered by using half chopped dried apricots and half cranberries.  I wasn't sure the chips count as "natural" so left them out of the others and decided to add the flaked almond topping to make them more interesting.   Because these are gluten-free, I wondered how they would compare to the "regular" cookies in these categories, made with wheat flour.  I think they did well enough.

 

I tested my Ricotta Pound Cake (a melding of a couple of recipes) on volunteers at the Wadsworth Atheneum for EnvisionFest, and when I dropped it off joked that a couple would be very upset if it did not get a ribbon.  I think they will be happy!

The Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip recipe was a flyby thought - I had eight entries, wondered if I would dare round it up to nine, which is a number I like.  And Serious Eats happened to have just posted it, and I figured that with the seasonal taste and chocolate, it might get some favourable reviews.  I did not use all the spices, just ginger and cloves, and I used a cup of mini-chips instead of two cups of regular sized.

I was a bit sad that my bar cookies recipe didn't do better.  It was based on a recipe from New Zealand, and maybe another jam in the middle would have been more popular - I can try again next year!  I thought they would be marked down on appearance because I rushed and tried to cut them warm, but they did OK in that category.  And the leftovers were happily received at rehearsal on Thursday, after I delivered my entries!

 

 

NEEDLEWORK

 

I will start out by saying that I cannot post one entry yet as it is a gift and I don't want the recipient to see it before unwrapping.  I was sad that one took only fourth, and wonder if I should have entered it under "Miscellaneous" instead of the category - nothing I can change about it now! 

 

The other three took blues (First Place) so I suppose I should be happy over all.  Since I usually make dresses in child sizes, this is intended for a girl named Judith, and I hope it fits - I think it may be a little small.  If so, it will go to a smaller girl and I'll enter a bigger dress next year!  I did several starts-and-stops on this trying to get something I liked.  The top is mostly my own invention and the skirt inspired by one on the Caron website.  I know several friends with little girls and try to spread the items around.  I have no idea why the top ruffle is up on one side in the display.  This makes three years in a row my crocheted dresses won first prize in the category.

I did not intend to enter the sweater this year.  It is from a Mary Maxim kit that I bought on a whim and the original delivery date was October 2nd or after, but it arrived the week before.  I started it on Monday and finished Wednesday - but no button in my box was right.  The closest one was too small to work well.  So on the way to deliver the entries to the fair, I stopped at Joann's and gave myself five minutes to find a button and get out of there.  After a quick debate I chose the one you saw, and when I turned in the sweater two of the ladies exclaimed over how perfect it was.  So I chose wisely!  I will give it to our Assistant Director for his daughter, a cute little blondie.  Although the kit comes in multiple sizes and contained enough yarn for all of them, the pattern was only for size 18-24 months so I couldn't wait - she'll be too big next year.

 

The last item I can show I started on Sunday and finished Thursday about two hours before the deadline for entries.  When I turned it in one of the ladies predicted it would win a blue ribbon, and she was correct.  Because I was crunched for time the crown is five rows shorter than the pattern directs but it fits my head, although a bit stretchy.  It's going to Mittens for Akkol to distribute at one of the orphanages this winter and I may make one on smaller needles for myself.  I didn't have the pattern yarn so used a ball of wool I had in the stash.  Because it is dark and hard to see on the in situ picture, I've included one that I took at home before delivering the entries, close enough for the pattern to be seen.

 

Of course, my needles and hooks are not still - there are more items to finish for the M4A fall campaign (socks, shawls, scarves) and holiday gifts to work on.  Even so, I am already planning ahead to next year's entries!