Yours 'til Niagara Falls

Weather Woes

The morning began with a 5:30 am phone call: no school!  We are having a storm with 60+ mph wind gusts.  The ice boom (a structure placed at the mouth of the Niagara River to prevent Lake Erie ice from jamming the river) either breached or the water and ice level rose above it.  At any rate, the river is jammed with ice.  Some of our neighbors are having flooding problems as the water is coming over the banks.  Usually the water is five feet below our dock.  Here is how it looks this morning:

As I surveyed that situation, I noticed a tree branch sticking out of the roof of my studio.  went I opened the door, I saw the full extent of the damage.  I'm pretty upset about this.  I have hundreds of books stored there.  And all my craft supplies.  My son and I put a few tarps in place, so I'm hoping the damage will be minimal.  It will be a monumental clean up effort.

It Might As Well Be Written on Papyrus

I'm in the home stretch of knitting my favorite knitted snowsuit for my favorite little boy.  I'm hoping to have it done in a few days.  I just looked at the pattern I'm working with.  It's part of a magazine published 25 years ago.  The illustrations are long gone and the part that's left is yellowed and starting to crumble.  The pattern is so old that it's entitled "Pram Set".  I think I need to slip it into an archival sleeve before it is lost for ever.  I think I've made for at least ten different babies.  I know for a fact that when I first started churning them out, I used *gasp* acrylic yarn. 

My other big event of the day was getting pulled over after an endless day of toil in the salt mines and getting a ticket for an expired inspection tag on my car.  Darn!  I put the whammy on myself last Friday.  It was payday and I said to my silly self, "How nice, Now I'll be all caught up with all my bills"  It always happens that way, Doesn't it?

So, I made may way home (I will admit, the state trooper was really nice to me)  and made chicken pot pie for dinner.  I consider that to be a dandy recipe because it uses leftovers and it hits the spot on a cold night.

Another project I'm working on is finding a dog.  The puggle I heard about ended up being a weird situation I didn't want to pursue.  The person trying to find the poor dog a home was a nosy neighbor who wanted to be able to approach the actual owner to say there was someone who would be able to take the dog off her hands.  I didn't need that kind of drama thank you very much.  The avenue I'm taking now is to try to adopt a dog who has been trained as a helper dog for handicapped people.  The organization frequently has dogs which aren't quite able to meet all the requirements.  Usually the dog is afraid of thunder or something like that which takes them out of the running to be placed with a person who needs a helper dog.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed. 

Estate Sale Bliss

The weekend started well with a stop at an estate sale.  I picked up this sewing cabinet:

Full, I say full, of sewing notions.  Almost a time capsule of sewing notions.  I've only had a few minutes to paw through the contents, but here are some treasures:

The last item is a recipe book copyrighted 1933.  It features economical baking recipes.  The background fabric is an apron pattern which the previous owner had cut out.  Estate sales are my favorite way to start the weekend!

Distelfink

Long ago, in a distant fiber festival, I bought a "Backyard Bird" kit from Sharon Costello's Black Sheep Designs.  She gives really clear directions for needle felting and her kits are very high quality.  I like my little goldfinch (distelfink is the German word for the bird).  I particularly like how he looks like he's sporting an ill-fitting toupee.  The other birds in the kit are a bluebird, a cardinal and a chickadee.  I guess I'm ready for the bird calls of spring.  Another sign of spring I'm looking forward to is flowers.  My aunt gave me some bulbs to force.  So pretty!

Say It Ain't So Queen! Say It Ain't So!

I haven't bought fashion magazines in years.  I might glance at the covers as I wait in line at the store, but I get all the "glamour" I need during my somewhat erratically-attended hair coloring appointments.  But... It seems to me that there is always  an article tucked somewhere in a stack of those oh-so-vogue issues wherein the beautiful Queen Latifah chatted about how sweet it is to be full-figured.  I believed her!  What I couldn't believe was the television commercial I just saw.  She is the new spokesperson for Jenny Craig!  Oh! the betrayal!  Oh! the heartbreak!  The woman always looks so beautiful.  I truly believed she felt beautiful.  Any of the Hollywood events that featured the Queen striding down the red carpet warmed my soul.  She looks far more like a real-live woman than any of the other waif-like creatures who wobble along after her.  And now...  I am bummed!

Crafty Stuff

On Etsy, some folks are selling Flashcard Art.  Hmmmm... I say to myself.  Didn't I pluck a box of those from a dumpster last June?  Well. I found them.  I just need a dollar store 8x10 frame to put together some phrases under glass.  It might be a swell way to use interesting fabric (as a backgroung)that I don't have any other plans for.

I also made a flower fairy based on Salley Mavor's Wee Felt Folk pattern.  I have misplaced my micron pens and tried using prismacolor colored pencils to do the face.  The effect is that the doll looks like she came straight from a stage production of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane".  (If you've never heard of that movie, it's a Bette Davis movie which is really worth viewing) Now I'm confessing to my cheapskate ways.  Yesterday at Joanne Fabric, I picked up a handful of broken silk blossoms literally from the floor of the floral department.  Usually they are just thrown away at the end of business that day.  So... sometimes I gather a few and ask the cashier if I can have them as I check out.  Anyhoo - that is what I used for the doll's skirt.

A Fun Day Off

I took my mother, aunt and cousin on a day trip to East Aurora, New York.  It is in a snowbelt and lovely, fluffy, penny-sized flakes were falling softly.  We stopped at Vidler's 5&10, and the Wooly Lamb yarn store.                                                                                                                                       

The highlight of the day was lunch at the Roycroft Inn.  It's on the Roycroft campus.  The Roycroft movement was based on the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement which started about 1900. The Inn is decorated with Arts and Crafts furniture and pottery. It is one of my favorite restaurants in the world.  I also have to say I prefer to go for lunch than dinner when I go out to eat.  The dessert menu is extra nice because it has the option of just ordering a sliver portion (which is more than enough even for a person with a never-ending sweet tooth like me). East Aurora is also the home of Fisher-Price and has an outlet store.  I almost went there but at the last minute I remembered - I can make toys for the baby!  What a brainstorm! 

Shame on Piecework

I was happy to see the January/February issue of Piecework on the magazine rack.  I bought it without leafing through it.  What a mistake!  The cover story about "How to Knit Poetry"  was a reprint from 1995!  What the heck!?!??!   I think it's fair to revisit  a topic, but to pluck an article from the archive to plop into an issue which is only 48 pages long to begin with!!!!!!!!!  They have some 'splainin' to do , Lucy!  I feel rooked.  There are a couple of decent enough articles in the magazine, but certainly not enough to offset the travesty perpetrated on the crafting public.  I use a cup-of-tea rating system.  This issue rates a quarter cup of cold tea in a styrofoam cup which has been stuck in the microwave to reheat.  Shame on Interweave Press!

It Is a Small World, After All

I live on the river, so I've been thinking that it would be nice to have a few model boats to decorate my new shelves.  I ordered a scale model of the Rainbow, a yacht built in 1934.  It won the Americas Cup.  I bought the thing from L.L. Bean (The fact I had a couple of coupons helped my decision).  It said in the catalog "some assembly required".  Beware of that phrase.  I had to steam press the sales before painstakingly untangling the lines which are cotton thread.  When I was finished, I was pleased.  Only then did I read the card which came with the model which gives the information about the vital statistics of the original yacht.  The designer was W. Starling Burgess.  That sounded familiar to me.  I googled it and HA! He was the father of none other but Tasha Tudor.  I love Tasha Tudor's art and stories and I am fascinated by the way she lives her life.  I read her biography The Art of Tasha Tudor.  There I learned that her given name at birth was Starling Burgess.  She was called Natasha by friends and family.  When she was a teenager, she started using the surname "Tudor" which was her mother's maiden name.  Hence - Tasha Tudor.  Isn't it funny how things are connected?

Who Are You?

Take five minutes and find out which Jane Austin heroine you are.  Follow this link: http://www.strangegirl.com/emma/quiz.php and answer the questions.  I am: