Camelama

God Jul Och Ett Gott Nytt Ar!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Here are the images from my Christmas card this year...

 

Phoebe in a sunbeam nap, with Christmas bows (not sticky-backed!)

 

Me with a couple of Olympic (Vancouver 2010) Mounties, from my trip to the Olympics!

It's a round-up, pardners...

A round-up of everything I haven't been blogging about lately... well, first, why no blogging. The death of my brother David in December was troubling more than I'd realized - the sadness kinda snuck up on me when I wasn't looking, when I was being angry with him and upset with him. So for  long time here, I haven't wanted to do much talking to anyone. The cat and I holed up for a couple months and basically hibernated. With more sun, longer days, and spring bursting out all over ... I guess I started coming out of my shell recently.

My friends have been a great help to me during this time, from Jennie keeping me fullspeed at work, and Sonja distracting me with all sorts of social activities, and Andy going out to dinner a lot (and even paying sometimes, woo hoo!).

Another big help has been my floofy cat, who just wants petting and lovin' and salmon treats.  Oh yes, and the ribbon pulled under the blankets occasionally.

Could YOU say 'no' to this feline?

 

Or these fuzzy paws?

"More please!"

So, I have a few events to catch up on here - the annual birthday ferry trip, latest craft projects, books, etc. More to come soon!

Ends and starts

It's been strange, over the past week, to read everyone else's New Years posts.  It's all about new beginnings, joyous looking forwards, cleaning out and looking ahead.

I've been stuck in looking backwards for the past few weeks. 

My brother David died on December 29th, 2009.  He was 50 years old. He'd had a stroke-like injury this fall and never recovered. His poor health to begin with didn't help, either.  As we learned more and more of his life I got more depressed - here was a person I really hadn't seen for about 20 years, and certainly wasn't close to. I knew very little indeed about him, I found out. Even being in the same city with him for a year prior didn't help - he made no effort to be with me, and my efforts were certainly not encouraged by him. But he loved me as a brother loves a sister, I know that, he showed it sometimes.  We just weren't part of each other's lives, really ... perhaps the age difference was too great, he was up and out doing big things when I was still a little kid.

We're finished now with burial plans (thanks in large part to another brother working tirelessly on this) but it won't actually happen until spring, when the ground has thawed enough to dig. Until then, he rests temporarily at a cemetery's holding spot. 

It's only now that the decisions were finalized that I feel like I can start to let go of the past few weeks and start looking forward again.  To better health, to organized craft space, to more time with friends I love, to new job (please oh please), to cuddles with the cat, ferry rides and road trips and time spent out in Nature.

Christmas Stocking

A few folks have shared their handmade Christmas stocking so I thought I'd join in.

My mom made this stocking for me when I was a baby. It needs a facelift - after Christmas this year I'll work on sequin replacement. But I just love getting it out every year and hanging it up, oh what joyful memories! Mom and Dad would always buy cheesy silly comic books and put them in our stockings, so that we'd have lots of fun reading to do. (Good idea, parents - reading *and* keeping your kids quiet for an hour or so!! Hee.)

 

My favorite parts of the stocking are the Snowman and the Tree. Closeups reveal the genetic condition I inherited: lack of glue expertise. :) But oh, poor things, such repair work needed. First time it will ever be repaired, though, so pretty good holding up for four decades!

Maybe I'll pick up an Archie comic book at the grocery store tonight and put it in the stocking for old times' sake!

Yardwork weekend

I popped down to the parents' house this weekend and helped clean up the yard a bit.

I was busy working on one section when I turned to find Mom had set out a shallow bowl of plants - and it was as if my eyes could not focus on it, I couldn't figure out what the HECK it was that she'd put out there...

 

Turns out she was being silly, and just to tease me, had gathered up all the 'finished' lilac blossoms that I was cutting off the bush, and stuck them stem-down into the bowl. But the joke was on her because we loved how it looked, and we left it there! It's cute - and she already has had "what is that fascinating plant?" comments on it from the neighbors. I love that she gets silly like me sometimes.

Here's a closeup:

 

My favorite part of her yard is in the back where it's all shady and cool and breezy, and an old douglas fir trunk has been rotting away over the years, while shamrocks strive to cover it completely.

 

The birdbath is a silly little plastic thing she got from some rummage sale, just because we like chickadees. It sits on the stump precariously, where depends on what's fallen in lately:

Here's one more angle of the shamrock hummock, just because I love it so much:

Lovely Day

Gorgeous day today - the excessive heat is gone, and we're back to perfect Seattle spring weather: sunny yet cloudy, good breeze, and everyone happy.

I went outside to read for a bit.  Took a blanket, a book ("Pigeon Post" by Arthur Ransome - a children's book that still pleases me long into adulthood, as do all of his books in the Swallows & Amazons series), and of course I took the cat.  She's been going crazy with the screen door lately so accompanying her oustide is the least I can do for her.

Oh yes - and we have Wildside Salmon snacks. I give her these whenever she comes running back to me when I call her.  These days I can call her name once and she comes from wherever she was, immediately, and even comes back inside the house. She really really REALLY likes these.

We lay in the shade of my gorgeous birch tree...

It shades the whole side yard and makes even the hottest day liveable, when stretched out beneath it. Peeking into the photo is my little apple tree - last year it had two apples.

*Someone* was extra cute this afternoon:

 And here she is getting into the picture when I was trying to photograph how the quilt is tied together:

This little faux-quilt was made by my mother about 30 years ago, for me to take to summer camp. We picked out a cheater material that already looked like a patchwork quilt:

Mom got yellow material that matched and we sewed two pieces of the top and two pieces of the bottom together to make the resulting blanket a bit wider, then sewed two long front and back pieces together. There's no batting inbetween the layers, I didn't need warmth from this - just coverage. Then in the middle of every large flower, Mom and I stitched a piece of red yarn through and tied in a knot on top:

I can remember sitting and tying these knots with Mom, debating how long to make each piece of yarn. These days they're just little yarn nubbins, they're so worn and washed and used.

I'm not sure how I'll patch this, I need a 6"x6" square and a 2"x2" square for two different rips. After that first summer, Mom patched one corner with the old 70's iron-on patch:

But that won't work for these larger portions:

The poor used worn spot, where you can see the backing...

Mom and I still joke about how we "made a quilt" all those years ago. We know it isn't really a quilt, it's just our silliness.

Thirty years later and I'm still using this blanket frequently. It went to summer camp many times when I was a camper, many times when I was a counselor. It went to the ranch in Wyoming with me, on numerous camping trips, to college dorm rooms and first apartments, cookouts on the ocean beaches, picnics on the shores of Puget Sound, and for many naps over the years it's covered myself or my friends. It deserves a really good patch so it can keep on blanketing for many years to come!

I need to start reading up on patching methods - this is 30 year old cotton material, soft and warn.

Sewing Machine meme from Sew, Mama, Sew! blog

I normally don't do memes because really, no one is THAT interested in me - but I love this one, as it's about my sewing machine, not me! The "Sew, Mama, Sew!" blog is hosting a sewing machine month and this meme is one of the activities.

What brand and model do you have?  

I have a Singer Merritt 4530

How long have you had it?  

Going on 15 years now

How much does that machine cost (approximately)?

I think my parents paid $400 for it at the time (It was a birthday present)

What types of things do you sew (i.e. quilting, clothing, handbags, home dec projects, etc.)?

I sew a lot of different things - clothing, home projects, bags, quilts, scarves, pillows, fabric sculptures, etc.

How much do you sew? How much wear and tear does the machine get?

I sew at least once a week.  The machine has a very hard life with me - I am not easy on my belongings. And it has to do battle with long-haired cat hair.

Do you like/love/hate your machine? Are you ambivalent? Passionate? Does she have a name?

I enjoy using the machine. I feel no emotion towards it, and it does not have a name.  My sewing machine is just a machine.

What features does your machine have that work well for you?

Changing stitch tension & length/width to suit the project and the materials - fast and easy.

Is there anything that drives you nuts about your machine?

It pulls the material diagonally!!! Sewing a straight line on this machine is well nigh impossible. Repeated attempts by repair people to fix this have been futile.

Do you have a great story to share about your machine (i.e., Found it under the Christmas tree? Dropped it on the kitchen floor? Sewed your fingernail to your zipper?, Got it from your Great Grandma?, etc.!)? We want to hear it!

Nope - just a little machine as a present from my parents, as Mom knew I was a big sewing person and didn't have my own. 

Well, ok, I think maybe she gave it to me so that I'd stop coveting her 1929 Singer machine so much and asking to borrow it.  :)

Would you recommend the machine to others? Why?

Good starter machine. Nothing fancy, but if yours doesn't do the darned diagonal pull thing, it's a good general machine. Never has broken, just gotten mis-aligned and too fuzzy inside, easily cleaned and repaired.

What factors do you think are important to consider when looking for a new machine?

Ease of use - not too many wacked out computer menus, I don't need computer embroidery, I want it to be able to handle canvas and denim, I'd rather have strength and reliability over fancy stitches.

Do you have a dream machine?

Not really - I haven't been able to afford anything so haven't looked. If I don't know about it I can't be tempted! I do still lust after my Mom's machine, a nifty little black metal Singer sewing machine from 1929. It has lost some of its shine over the years, but I just love the gold filigree decorations on it and how everything is both machinery and pretty. And no cheapo plastic, either! It was marketed as a portable but because of all the metal, it's not that portable! I can remember Mom "oomph"ing as she moved it from one room to another.  And I remember the joy when she got the buttonhole attachment, no more by-hand buttonholes, just set it up and the guide would make the machine do it all (well, with you powering the machine and turning the material, that is).

Blatant Brother Bragging ....

My brother has the same creative gene as me, it seems - though he uses Legos!

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/07/ann_arbor_lego_designer_builds.html

His webpage is:
www.bricksforbrains.com

The bridge they mention in the article above?  It's *insane*.  Here's a time-lapse video of him building the bridge.

Happy (belated now) Father's Day

Visited the parents this weekend.  As a gift to my father, I let him assist me with installing new headlights on my car.  Happy Father's Day!

Then I let him take me to the DMV to get my license renewed.  Holy hannah - I was given #204 and they were only assisting #115!  You're telling me there's 89 people ahead of me?!!?  But there were only 30 people at most in the room!  Where are all these other people??!!   

Turns out the two other closest offices were closed today - why they didn't triple the # of workers at this office on such a day, I'll never know, but talk about cushy jobs!  After every 2nd person that a clerk helped, they took a break. 

Wonder if they're hiring....

Wait, second thoughts, never mind.  I might end up looking like Patty and Selma.