There I was, innocently planning another day trip or two, looking up interesting places to visit and then checking for surrounding shops that might have yarn I like or fabric I'd sew because I don't care how picturesque a place is, I have to feed the procrastinations daily, and -
My trusty search engine turned up a shop that specializes in rug-hooking.
(not this particular shop, but another that has moderately less enticing photographs.)
Honestly. In about 3 seconds I went from not remotely interested in rug-hooking to 120% enthusiasm. Like I need another distraction from getting back to writing in 4 short weeks, which is how long it will take me to get the current distractions finished and off my mind.
As the adrenaline surged, I found myself thinking this would be a perfect way - with nothing more than the purchase of a $3 hook and maybe some burlap - to use up both fabric and yarn I'm not likely to do anything with. How virtuous. How could I say no?
How to say no: read the instructions. Completely damped down the flames.
A narrow escape... except that as I wrote this, I remembered all those T shirts that got holes
or shrunk
or stretched
and would make a super soft rug if I cut them into strips...
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
When cars were cars
It must have been fun to design cars back before you had to worry about stuff like cost and safety and part replacement:
Even the public service got cool wheels.
I got this photograph while visiting the Ontario Provincial Police museum in Orillia, which is quite an interesting holiday destination in itself. I hadn't thought about the kinds of things that you could put in a museum of police work but it turns out, there is enough to fill a pretty big room and really open your eyes.
Uniforms through the decades, for example. The men's uniforms were sort of what you'd expect, but the women's, which became necessary in the early 70s when women could finally join, started out much like stewardess outfits - right down to the hat. And instead of a belt with the tools of the trade, they got a purse.
Another thing to give pause: the work of sketch artists. There is a cool display of a sketch done with the help of a not terribly observant witness, and a sketch done with the help of a much clearer one, and the photograph of the perpetrator of the crime - and, whoa. The good sketch was a dead ringer for that photograph.
Speaking of photography, there is a fabulous collection of turn of the century mugshots I kind of which now I'd bought to look through at my leisure. The quality of the images is incredible and so are the stories they suggest.
Still, it's the car I really love. Day trips would be pretty awesome in a vehicle like that, don't you think? And boy would other drivers keep out of your way!
Even the public service got cool wheels.
I got this photograph while visiting the Ontario Provincial Police museum in Orillia, which is quite an interesting holiday destination in itself. I hadn't thought about the kinds of things that you could put in a museum of police work but it turns out, there is enough to fill a pretty big room and really open your eyes.
Uniforms through the decades, for example. The men's uniforms were sort of what you'd expect, but the women's, which became necessary in the early 70s when women could finally join, started out much like stewardess outfits - right down to the hat. And instead of a belt with the tools of the trade, they got a purse.
Another thing to give pause: the work of sketch artists. There is a cool display of a sketch done with the help of a not terribly observant witness, and a sketch done with the help of a much clearer one, and the photograph of the perpetrator of the crime - and, whoa. The good sketch was a dead ringer for that photograph.
Speaking of photography, there is a fabulous collection of turn of the century mugshots I kind of which now I'd bought to look through at my leisure. The quality of the images is incredible and so are the stories they suggest.
Still, it's the car I really love. Day trips would be pretty awesome in a vehicle like that, don't you think? And boy would other drivers keep out of your way!
Friday, August 6, 2010
Cottage Country: the way it was
Yesterday was Leacock Museum day - aka the day I went to Orillia, Ontario with friends to see the summer house Stephen Leacock (had?) built in 1928 on a bay at the south end of Lake Couchiching.
The neat thing for me was that he didn't just magically have this great house: he bought the land and camped on it at first in tents, building as he could afford to do so (he started with a cookhouse - first things first, after all.)
The land around the property is built up now, quite crowded really, but there is plenty of room here for a walk through the woods along the shoreline.
This was not the case with the cottages along the side roads where we got lost on the way home: the buildings there were closer together than the houses on my street.
Still, there has been some progress in cottage comforts:
You're not likely to see painted wood counters in a modern cottage kitchen - are you?
The neat thing for me was that he didn't just magically have this great house: he bought the land and camped on it at first in tents, building as he could afford to do so (he started with a cookhouse - first things first, after all.)
The land around the property is built up now, quite crowded really, but there is plenty of room here for a walk through the woods along the shoreline.
This was not the case with the cottages along the side roads where we got lost on the way home: the buildings there were closer together than the houses on my street.
Still, there has been some progress in cottage comforts:
You're not likely to see painted wood counters in a modern cottage kitchen - are you?
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Giving in to the thrift
I've been thrifting again, thanks to Trish and her own recent thrifting projects - just when my house was at maximum craft capacity!
There was simply no way to resist this already-felted green pullover, though:
And after months of looking fruitlessly for sheets sufficiently white with flowers to use as lining for the tote bags I keep making - well, I wasn't about to turn up my nose at all these:
Which brings me back to the problem of maximum capacity. Let's just say that organization is not longer enough - purging of unneeded extras is now called for...
... and that includes about 15 years' worth of fiction writing that went nowhere. Really, do I need all those rejection letters?? (as it happens, yes, so I kept them - but I didn't keep every draft of manuscripts I wrote ten years ago and wouldn't do a thing with today.)
At least now the felted sweaters have a home near the lining fabric. And there might be just enough room now for one or two more of them, ahem.
There was simply no way to resist this already-felted green pullover, though:
And after months of looking fruitlessly for sheets sufficiently white with flowers to use as lining for the tote bags I keep making - well, I wasn't about to turn up my nose at all these:
Which brings me back to the problem of maximum capacity. Let's just say that organization is not longer enough - purging of unneeded extras is now called for...
... and that includes about 15 years' worth of fiction writing that went nowhere. Really, do I need all those rejection letters?? (as it happens, yes, so I kept them - but I didn't keep every draft of manuscripts I wrote ten years ago and wouldn't do a thing with today.)
At least now the felted sweaters have a home near the lining fabric. And there might be just enough room now for one or two more of them, ahem.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Thrifty
My friend Trish is thrift shopping - she's gotten hooked on sweater-unraveling for reclaimed yarn - and by telling me about it, she's making my own thrift obsession worse.
I read about recycling yarn last year (before I acquired tools that coincidentally make the job easier) and thought it sounded like a ton of work, but now that I'm spinning fibre I get the appeal of winding yarn from sweater to swift so you can wash and dry it. I'm doing that now anyway - with the Trish approach, you just skip the hours and hours of spinning.
That said, it's not sweater unraveling that is making me dream of thrift stores: it's sheets. I've been longing for more vintage weathered fabric for tote bag sewing (why am I not yet sick of making tote bags?) and then last weekend I watched some experienced picnickers throwing old sheets over scarred and filthy picnic tables for an instantly glam outdoor meal. Gah! more uses for thrifty sheets.
And have I actually found any on my thrift store runs? No.
That should change this month. This is Road Trip month - of the day-long variety. Pick a town with decent weather on the day that's available, and see everything it has to offer (including thrift stores.) Last summer I got buttons and crocheted doilies that supplemented my sewing actvities nicely, and this summer - well, I'm really, really hoping for some sheets. And some rip-out-able cashmere sweaters for Trish. After all, what a friends for?
I read about recycling yarn last year (before I acquired tools that coincidentally make the job easier) and thought it sounded like a ton of work, but now that I'm spinning fibre I get the appeal of winding yarn from sweater to swift so you can wash and dry it. I'm doing that now anyway - with the Trish approach, you just skip the hours and hours of spinning.
That said, it's not sweater unraveling that is making me dream of thrift stores: it's sheets. I've been longing for more vintage weathered fabric for tote bag sewing (why am I not yet sick of making tote bags?) and then last weekend I watched some experienced picnickers throwing old sheets over scarred and filthy picnic tables for an instantly glam outdoor meal. Gah! more uses for thrifty sheets.
And have I actually found any on my thrift store runs? No.
That should change this month. This is Road Trip month - of the day-long variety. Pick a town with decent weather on the day that's available, and see everything it has to offer (including thrift stores.) Last summer I got buttons and crocheted doilies that supplemented my sewing actvities nicely, and this summer - well, I'm really, really hoping for some sheets. And some rip-out-able cashmere sweaters for Trish. After all, what a friends for?
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Pasta, the gift that keeps on etc.
Lately I've been cooking pasta most nights. Not because it's easy - it's not, what with having the filter the tap water (lead pipes coming into the house from the city, yay) and all the extra pots you have to wash - but in part because I'm on some kind of weird sauce groove.
Like - onions sauteed in butter, then diluted with a can of tomato sauce plus a can of navy beans? Sounds awful, right? Yet it's awesome.
Or white sauce with red or yellow peppers and snap peas and carrots, or ye old tomato meat sauce, or onions/zuccini/fresh tomatoes sauteed in balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil, with grated cheese thrown on top at the end so it goes spready.
The other part of my pasta obsession is the leftovers. Yeah, if I can freeze any extra sauce I'll do that, but I'm talking about the pasta itself. I've been saving some out from the sauce and throwing it into an omelet the next day - wow.
You can go fussy with recipes such as this one from Epicurious, or you can be lazy like me - onions in butter again, then gradually add some celery and maybe some chopped tomatoes, then dump all that into a bowl to mix up with grated cheese and a couple of beaten eggs and the leftover pasta, be it bow ties or spaghetti, before pouring it all back into the pan. Looks a lot like that bean/tomato/onion sauce sounds, and tastes like heaven on a plate.
Like - onions sauteed in butter, then diluted with a can of tomato sauce plus a can of navy beans? Sounds awful, right? Yet it's awesome.
Or white sauce with red or yellow peppers and snap peas and carrots, or ye old tomato meat sauce, or onions/zuccini/fresh tomatoes sauteed in balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil, with grated cheese thrown on top at the end so it goes spready.
The other part of my pasta obsession is the leftovers. Yeah, if I can freeze any extra sauce I'll do that, but I'm talking about the pasta itself. I've been saving some out from the sauce and throwing it into an omelet the next day - wow.
You can go fussy with recipes such as this one from Epicurious, or you can be lazy like me - onions in butter again, then gradually add some celery and maybe some chopped tomatoes, then dump all that into a bowl to mix up with grated cheese and a couple of beaten eggs and the leftover pasta, be it bow ties or spaghetti, before pouring it all back into the pan. Looks a lot like that bean/tomato/onion sauce sounds, and tastes like heaven on a plate.
Monday, August 2, 2010
37 children, 1 mum
I started my weekend watching Nanook of the North and being amazed by how happy Nanook is in every image, living his stripped-to-essentials life. This is a man whose sole focus is providing for his family, and since he does that constantly and with great success, what's not to be happy about? Bonus: the amazing clowns-in-a-car scene in which he unpacks his large family from the hole in his kayak after pulling up to shore.
Later I visited a museum that included a very lived-in house, as explained by this plaque outside:
It's a different kind of family provision, one that I think had to be at least as exhausting as Nanook's lifestyle. You have to click on the image to get the full impact.
Now admittedly, out of the 37 children in question our Rhoda only had 18, but she still had more than either of her predecessors from her two husbands.
She didn't last long between her two marriages, judging by the less-than-23-months between the last baby from dad #1 and the first from dad #2, and I'm guessing the dads didn't last long either - even with combined households, it had to be a lot easier to put two people in charge of a pioneer farm.
Just as Nanook tirelessly hunted for seals and walruses and fish to feed his family, Rhoda produced children. Even if she started at 18, she must have been having babies till she was 45. By which time she was probably also a grandmother, don't you think? Maybe a few times over, with the contribution of the stepchildren.
I wonder whether she had time to enjoy them, beyond a few quiet moments in the night settling a hungry infant. Did she love her husbands when she married them, or did she just come to love them later, or not at all? How was it to marry men who'd lost wives before her? Did her stepchildren welcome her? Did she welcome them? and had she known them perhaps, from the time they were born?
Each question suggests so many variables - so many stories in one simple plaque.
Later I visited a museum that included a very lived-in house, as explained by this plaque outside:
It's a different kind of family provision, one that I think had to be at least as exhausting as Nanook's lifestyle. You have to click on the image to get the full impact.
Now admittedly, out of the 37 children in question our Rhoda only had 18, but she still had more than either of her predecessors from her two husbands.
She didn't last long between her two marriages, judging by the less-than-23-months between the last baby from dad #1 and the first from dad #2, and I'm guessing the dads didn't last long either - even with combined households, it had to be a lot easier to put two people in charge of a pioneer farm.
Just as Nanook tirelessly hunted for seals and walruses and fish to feed his family, Rhoda produced children. Even if she started at 18, she must have been having babies till she was 45. By which time she was probably also a grandmother, don't you think? Maybe a few times over, with the contribution of the stepchildren.
I wonder whether she had time to enjoy them, beyond a few quiet moments in the night settling a hungry infant. Did she love her husbands when she married them, or did she just come to love them later, or not at all? How was it to marry men who'd lost wives before her? Did her stepchildren welcome her? Did she welcome them? and had she known them perhaps, from the time they were born?
Each question suggests so many variables - so many stories in one simple plaque.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)