in which i solicit your true and honest opinion, whatever it may be.
The title of this post reflects my constant state about everything, but in this case it’s really more about buttons. I haven’t been working on my Audrey in Silt sweater for quite a long time, since I started (and then upsettingly re-started) Marnie’s Moby sweater; I want to finish Marnie’s and get it off to her so she can wear it while she still lives in Chicago. More on that one in a second. But for now, I have a question for you about the buttons for my Audrey sweater. Over on knitspot, Anne Hanson frequently mentions Moving Mud as a source of buttons for her sweaters, and she always says the buttons she receives are more beautiful than what she’d have selected for herself. Since my Audrey sweater is really so beautiful, and I feel so inadequate about selecting buttons, I thought I’d give this a try, and commission the artist at Moving Mud to just make some buttons for me. I sent her my swatch, told her how many and what size, and just trusted her. They’re handblown glass buttons with a shank. I’ve placed them on the sweater — what do you think, honestly?
there will be 12 buttons -- this is just the first 5
I want to say what I think, but I don’t want to influence your opinion. I realize that seeing a few of them on an unfinished sweater lying flat on a table is a different thing than seeing them all on the sweater, on a real body, but I ….. well, what do you think. I am happy with Moving Mud, she was wonderful to deal with, so any concern I have isn’t about her and her business, it’s just about these particular buttons. What do you think?
Marnie’s sweater is coming right along:
the sweater body, blocked and dry. even though the waist draws in quite a bit, it's still not as tiny as marnie's waist. but it should look nice on her!
that rope cable will travel up the arm, all the way to the shoulder.
I’m very fuzzy-headed today and having a hard time getting my brain to work. I really need to get to work, and want to (I’m editing a great manuscript, such fun to read), but it’s like being encased in cotton today, everything’s kind of fuzzy and far from me, and I’m not feeling sharp at all. I hate days like that…..and hope yours is crisper and better!
Please, really do tell me your honest thoughts about those buttons. Perhaps my sure/unsure thing is about today’s fuzziness, but I don’t think so. I’ve had them for weeks now and still feel unsure. What do you think?
A WiP post…
Well y’all, I’m sick. Small potatoes — a touch of flu or something, just the kind of thing that feels gross and icky and whiney, but nothing more. I’m wound up in blankets and flannel pajamas, with my fleece jacket and a heater blowing on me, and going in and out of naps. It’s bitter cold here; today’s high is only 26, so it feels like winter, especially as I watch the wind whistling down my street, blowing the bare trees around.
This weekend I did a lot of knitting, as I mentioned, and just shared the pictures with Marnie so I thought I’d put them here, too. This is the Ambergris sweater designed by Ann Weaver, which she [obviously] based on Moby Dick:
here's the front -- see how the design elements extend down into the ribbing?
close-up view of the flukes and ropes -- i really love both those elements
the side seam, a kind of whalebone inset
It’s great fun to knit, but it requires attention because there’s a lot going on at once — several charts, shaping, and the addition of a side chart in one small section (not shown here). I made a large Excel spreadsheet — oh how I love Excel spreadsheets — plotting out each row on the whole body. It makes it much simpler and so far I haven’t needed to frog anything….good, because the yarn is sticky and has long alpaca fibers here and there, which would make frogging a slow process. I’m really enjoying working on it, and love to imagine Marnie wearing it. The pleasures of knitting something special for someone you love, when they’ve had a part in the project so you know they’ll enjoy it.
*cough* *shiver* Back under the covers for me. Happy knitting, y’all.
good thing she’s smaller than me, or I might not be able to give away this sweater….
Last night I did some swatching for Marnie’s sweater. The yarn is Valley Yarns Northfield, which is 70% merino, 20% alpaca, and 10% silk, and the fabric is just so beautiful. I’m going to have to buy exactly the same yarn and color to make myself a sweater, assuming I continue to love it as much. Here’s the stockinette pre-blocked swatch, followed by the rope-cable swatch:
so beautiful -- this is what the back of the sweater will look like, since it's the only area that's not cabled in some way
and here's one of the cable swatches; it's very neat, the way the rope emerges.
I’m actually a little bit afraid of knitting this sweater, just as I was afraid to read Moby Dick (which is the craziest idea in the whole world…really? afraid to read a book?). Just as with the book, I’m afraid it’s beyond me, too complicated for my feeble mind to manage. With the sweater, there are multiple patterns and cables going on simultaneously plus shaping. It’s knit in the round, bottom-up, and splits at the arms. So all the busy business happens simultaneously, and since I knit at night, while watching tv with my husband, when I’m kind of tired, well…..I worry. But I want to do it perfectly, so I’m just going to take my time, take each row for itself and make it right, and it’ll all work out. And perhaps I’ll love the FO as much as I love the book. Probably not, but maybe.
Here’s a funny thing about Christmas songs I found on the NPR music page. I especially love #6, though they’re all funny.
so funny!
Tonight’s the Winter Solstice Concert at St John the Divine, and if I love it half as much as I did last year, it’ll be overwhelming. Happy Friday, y’all! I hope you’re able to enjoy the holiday season and not feel too stressed.
p.s. OH — one more. There are a couple of Ryan Gosling tumblrs, and this is my favorite picture so far:
hey girl.
” Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” — Herman Melville
To say Marnie likes the book Moby Dick is a tremendous understatement. The name of her business is Monkey-Rope Press (here’s her professional site, and here’s her Etsy shop). The banners on both sites feature a quote from the fabulous monkey-rope chapter in Moby Dick: “it is a humorously perilous business for both of us.” If you poke around in her shop, you’ll see prints about oceanic life, including shipwrecks. She’s creating a book that is partly set on a huge ocean-going ship that …. well, I don’t want to give it away. To do research for the book, she built a model ship, and she took sailing lessons. The girl is thorough.
So when I saw this sweater of course I thought immediately of Marnie:
Ambergris, designed by Ann Weaver
Those whale flukes up the center, the beautiful knots and ropes up the sides, it’s Moby Dick in wool. I have been wanting to knit sweaters for someone other than myself, but Katie lives in Texas and I wasn’t sure Marnie would want one; inspired by this sweater, I sent her the picture this morning, hoping she’d like it. A few emails very quickly exchanged later, and the yarn is on its way and I own the pattern. I’ll be using Valley Yarns Northfield, in charcoal:
Valley Yarns Northfield, in charcoal -- the color of the depths!
I’ll be loathe to set Audrey aside, but so very eager to make this sweater, and for Marnie, I won’t mind a bit. It should be loads of fun to make; I’m changing the neck, to give her a slouchy turtleneck instead of the kind of odd neck it currently has. I can’t wait!! If it’s as great as it seems, I may have to make one for myself, too. I loved Moby Dick so much, it nearly ruined me for reading anything else because nothing compares.
Just sharing my intense enthusiasm……knitters, I know you know what this is like.
Chicago, Chicago that toddling town / Chicago, Chicago I will show you around – I love it / Bet your bottom dollar you lose the blues in Chicago, Chicago / The town that Billy Sunday couldn’t shut down
I had such a wonderful time in Chicago with Marnie and Tom. That’s a kind of obvious statement, I guess. If Marnie and Tom, then wonderful. I arrived mid-morning Friday and left early Monday morning, so we had a nice long time together. One of these days my kids and I are going to live in the same place, or near enough to make visits more frequent. It’s boggling that I only get to see them once or twice a year.
Everything we did, saw, ate, whatever, was great — they’re such fun to spend time with because they’re smart and thoughtful, they laugh all the time, and they’re gracious hosts. So I’m necessarily leaving out so many pictures, but here were some of the highlights of the trip. There are lots of photos, so I’ll put in a jump.
CLICK to continue reading toddling... Continue reading »
wow! I’m proud all right, proud as a whitewashed pig! (~the widow Sugrue, Darby O’Gill and the Little People, 1959)
Artists toil away in poverty and obscurity, making awesome things, giving it out to the universe, and recognition can be slow. Hard to come by. There in spirit, but spirit doesn’t cover a loaf of bread. You know how proud I am of Marnie’s work, and today Chicago is hearing about it. She was featured on the Chicagoist website! She made a wonderful set of graphic prints of the prerecorded announcements on the L train, and that was the primary point of the Chicagoist post. Here’s the one they featured:
They wrote:
Few things become unwanted earworms more quickly than the automated “L” station and train announcements. People have had harrowing nightmares where “Attention customers: an INBOUND train toward the Loop will be arriving shortly” plays endlessly, with the train never arriving at the station.
Monkey-Rope Press is the brainchild of illustrator, printmaker and bookbinder Marnie Galloway. Galloway’s Etsy store is a glorious time suck of amazing prints, none more so than these letterpress posters of “L” station announcements. We also love the bicycle subculture pugilism prints.
It’s never too early to begin your Christmas shopping.
!!!!!!!!! IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO BEGIN YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!!! Let the shopping begin!
love is all you need. really, that’s true.
The most wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, eloquent women in the world.
How did I get so lucky.
Daughter! what words have pass’d thy lips unweigh’d! (Replied the Thunderer to the martial maid;)
….because I’m shouting it from every electronic rooftop! Marnie’s first chap book is completed and available now, and it’s a limited run of only 175 copies. This is the first volume of a 6-part story titled In the Sound and Seas. I already bought 5 copies, and she set some aside to send out for reviews, so if you want one you’d better hurry. It’s only $15!!
all drawn by hand. Every tiny leaf. The hatching on every tiny leaf. Thousands of tiny bunnies. Really. You will be awestruck.
Marnie’s one-a-them Arteests. She simply is an artist, it’s how she thinks, how she perceives the world. So, for instance, I look at her book and say oh, so gorgeous, it’s about three women who are building a boat! And Marnie says it’s about the difficulty of doing her work. Her – huge artistic view; me – immediate surface-level view. Her – artist; me – reader. Her formal description of this book is
This 22-page mini-comic is the first volume of a six-part, wordless narrative about obsessive creative production and failure. Volume 1 frames the future volumes, as 3 storytellers sing the tentative world of the rest of the story into existence.
Here’s a link to the flickr set so you can see the pages; here’s a link to her announcement on her professional website; and here, two ways to buy. She’s a smart cookie! You can either buy a copy of this volume, or you can subscribe and receive the additional volumes as they publish. Feel free, do one or the other. 
one of the top 5 weekends of my LIFE
My little idea for “weekend’s best” was to post one or two photos, but I indulge myself this week because it was one of the best weekends of my entire life. Why?
- Marnie came to visit.
- She and Will saw each other for the first time since July 2008. And it was good.
- I got to have dinner with two of my kids at the same time — now I just need to get us all together at the same time….hard, since we’re so far-flung. But I’m going to do it, somehow.
- Marnie and I went shopping and I got this very cute little style going, now.
- Marnie helped set my life on a different course with a strength training routine, and lots of conversation about it. I get it now. I’m ready to go.
So here are some photos that capture some of the above (all photos courtesy of Marnie; click to enlarge any of them). It was wonderful.
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- another cute outfit! me happy, facing 2 of my kids and missing the 3rd really badly.
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- always with their heads together. always.
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- one cute outfit!
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- marnie at highline park
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- will at highline park, wearing the hat Katie knitted for him
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- bad Easter candy debauchery. you can’t see the Peeps because I already ate them.
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- heads together. again. always. i love this one.
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- will, smiling at marnie
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- sib play
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- smiling at her brother — she has such a great smile!
Weekend’s best, of the best weekend.
two of the thoughtful people who mean a lot to me
the sweetest baby
She’s here! Marnie arrived very late last night after a nearly-disastrous trip from Chicago — lots of people trying to leave Chicago had nearly-disastrous trips yesterday thanks to fog. Or so I hear. Anyway, Marnie’s here for the weekend and I am so glad to see her.
Marnie in India, in college
I’m not quite sure what we’ll do during her visit, but I know it’ll involve a lot of talking and sharing (our specialty) and probably some art-looking (her specialty) and eating good food (our family specialty). She’s also going to show me how to do some cute things with my currently uncute and extremely long (for me) hair. And maybe we’ll play Scrabble and watch movies. Lots of choices.
Depth, in the post title, refers both to Marnie, who swims in it, and The Pale King, the book that’s just come out by David Foster Wallace. Actually, his editor assembled the unfinished book, but it’s classic DFW, from the sound of it. I can’t wait to read it. The NYTimes book review made me want to cry, from missing DFW’s writing and spirit in the world. Infinite Jest was about our obsessive need for all-consuming entertainment, and The Pale King is about our boredom. From the NYTimes piece:
Perhaps, he writes, “dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that’s dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there,” namely the existential knowledge “that we are tiny and at the mercy of large forces and that time is always passing and that every day we’ve lost one more day that will never come back.”
Happiness, Wallace suggests in a Kierkegaardian note at the end of this deeply sad, deeply philosophical book, is the ability to pay attention, to live in the present moment, to find “second-by-second joy + gratitude at the gift of being alive.”
Sigh. There aren’t that many people who talk like that, and people you can talk with about those concerns. Marnie sent me this link to a wonderful article about DFW’s papers, which are now collected at UT Austin. Of course I love seeing the notes people leave in books (as I wrote in this post), so reading his notes is a great experience.
It’s a gorgeous sunny spring day here in Manhattan — I hope you’re facing as wonderful a Saturday as I am! Pictures will be taken, that’s for sure.
Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away / On my way to where the air is sweet, can you tell me how to get, how to get to, wait. This has nothing to do with Sesame Street.
I was all ready to swatch my new sweater yesterday morning when I had my wonderful weekly phone call from Marnie, who reminded me that I was going to make her a hat — she’d already picked the pattern and the yarn, and in the way things work with a 52-year old mind, I’d been excited about it and then forgot. This happens to me at least three or four times a day. Marnie’s coming to visit me for a long weekend (and to see Will) in a couple of weeks, so I’ll get to give it to her personally. Check it out, it’s the “My Striped & Slouchy hat” (rav link here), knit in Cascade 220:
such a sunny hat!
and with such a wide ribbing -- two stripes wide, great for covering her ears
It reminds me of eggs, eggs and cream, butter and cream, daffodils. I get such delight from knitting the stripes — nothing is cheerier than stripes, in the first place, and anything with white is just wonderful. Red and white (my fave), yellow and white (my new fave), blue and white, black and white, gray and white, all really great.
I have one more set of stripes — it’s very slouchy — and then the decrease section, which decreases very very quickly. It’s cute, and couldn’t be simpler to make. I am watching the old HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers (I’d never seen it before), and this hat is so simple I don’t have to look at it at all while I’m knitting, which is good because the show is entirely absorbing. There are scenes I have to look away, so when legs are blown off, or guts are visible, I just check my knitting until it passes. It’s an amazing program, you’ve probably already seen it. It got into my dreams last night.
Here’s my very last attempt to get the colors photographed in my Saroyan, and it failed. I really wish you could see it, because it’s the most wonderful shade of olive green. Sigh.
IT'S NOT BROWN!!! grrrrrr!!
I hope you have a great spring Sunday, and your colors are true!
happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear sweet marnie, happy birthday to you!
She’s 26 years old, today (exactly half my age!). She’s an artist / weight lifter / thoughtful smart loving funny creative sweet tough genuine amazing authentic person. Marnie has been special from the moment of her birth (and I’m not just kidding here, or using hyperbole or just being her mom) (though I am her mom) (and real proud of it) (and of her too) (because she is a fine, fine human being). If she loves you you’re a very lucky person. I’m a very lucky person. Happy birthday, Marnie my love.
she loves photobooths
she loves nature (though she prefers ants to turtles)
she used to LOVE being fancy and adorable
she loves irony -- (as in, wearing this pink fuzzy sweater ironically)
she loves Tom (me too)
she's one of the smartest people I know (Smith 2006), and i happen to know a bunch of very smart people so that's saying something
and she's freaking aDORable on top of it all
she loves cows
y'all remember this one.
and she loves me.
Katie and Trey, Marnie and Tom, just a few of my beloved kids.
Even though I didn’t get to be with them this year, my daughters and their husbands spent the holiday together in Austin, at Katie’s beautiful home. They got to see their dad and step-mom, and their stepgrandparents who just moved here from Russia. Ah, the complex family.
I won’t go into the details of their Christmas, though I do want to share a couple of pictures with you. Looking at them made me feel like they’re going to be ok. Even when I’m not around, some day in the far far distant future, they’re going to be ok, they’ll be each other’s family, and the beat goes on. (yeah the beat goes on. that’s playing on my ipod. i love cher.)
They carried on our family’s traditions for each other. I can’t tell you how that makes me feel. So here are my daughters and their husbands, wonderful people one and all. I have more pictures of Marnie than Katie — I wish I had more (hint hint Katie).
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- Katie and Trey, cooking a gorgeous-sounding Christmas Eve dinner
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- Marnie and Tom in their waiting for Santa nighties, courtesy of Katie. I have a similar photo of Katie and Trey, but their eyes are red and I couldn’t fix it.
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- This is how you spin around under the Zilker tree. Katie and Trey are holding hands, leaning back and looking up, and spinning around as fast as they can.
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- Marnie and Tom, extremely dizzy after twirling and looking up under the Zilker Tree.
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- They took a quick trip to San Antonio to see family, and did not forget the Alamo. Which does not have a basement (get the reference?).
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- Tom spontaneously broke into a samba when “Girl From Ipanema” came on. I can’t tell you how dear this is. Good son.
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- Trey built (and wrapped!) this structure to disguise Katie’s new KitchenAid stand mixer. Good son!
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- Oscar and Penny dressed for the holidays – Katie’s and Trey’s doggies
it’s amazing how our kids can transform the tiny gifts we give them, isn’t it.
I’ve been thinking about this for such a long time. We give our kids whatever gifts we have, passing them along from those who gave them to us, and sometimes passing along some that are ours alone to give. Once I was on a bus in Austin – must’ve been the University Shuttle Bus, the only bus I ever took in Austin – and I saw a mother and her grown daughter sitting across from me. It was clear the younger woman was the daughter of the older, she carried a ghost of her mother’s expression underneath her own. And I loved that, seeing the echo.
I didn’t really grow up with my father, but when I met him when I was an adult, I realized all kinds of tiny ways I was just like him, things I couldn’t have picked up from seeing him. Like the way I wipe both corners of my mouth unconsciously, the way I used to search the personals section of the newspaper (back when that wasn’t code for porn), looking for something someone might’ve written for me – he did both those things too. OK, big deal, so do many people, but to see that we did both things in the exact same way, it was a little eerie. Gifts, characteristics, invisible threads connecting us across time.
So all my children received many things from their father and from me, and I think about them, and am struck by them now and then. There’s a very clear example in my daughter Marnie. Marnie’s dad draws these little cartoons – always has, as long as I’ve known him. He draws a waving guy, and a dog, and they have not changed over all these years. The only variation is that now and then the waving guy has a palm tree behind him, or something like that. Here’s a new example, he signs all his letters to his kids like this:
he's been drawing this since i met him in 1978
He and Marnie used to spend hours drawing together, filling up page after page with cartoon line drawings, fantastic creatures, all kinds of things. (I can hardly draw a breath, or a straight line with a ruler, so Marnie’s visual art talent didn’t come from me, that’s for sure!) So Marnie took this very small gift from her dad, and some other small gifts from me, and turned them into this GIANT thing. She’s creating a graphic novel now, and it’s staggering and will be staggeringly beautiful. Here’s a seed of it:
something marnie describes as a "sketch"
The link to her professional site is there to the right –> do check it out.
Life is really wonderful in this way, these tiny invisible threads and bonds gathering and growing over time, and changing by the aggregation. I love this stuff.
check out the Haunted Library – my girl has a piece in the exhibition!
I don’t mean to brag, but check out this handmade book created by my daughter Marnie. If you’re in the Chicago area, you can see it in person at Ragdale, 1260 N Green Bay Rd in Lake Forest, where it is being exhibited in a show called “House, Dreaming.” Marnie’s piece is a lighthearted take on death and presidential history:
Happy Friday, y’all.
wow – linoleum block prints of gannets. who’d a thunk they’d be so amazing and special…
I knew Marnie was making her thank you cards for the wedding gifts she and Tom received. So I knew they’d be way cooler than anything I would’ve ever thought of. Sure enough, my card arrived today. And this concludes the wedding posts!
even the BACK of the envelope is cool
remember the papier mache gannets she hung from the tent rafters? here they are again.
lovely graceful words on the right, out of sight, but look at her drawings of the dress and the shawl. she's always done this.
She specializes in artist’s books, letterpress, and hand-carved woodblock and linoleum prints. Her favorite is the artist’s book, I think. But if you like her style, she has an etsy shop – MonkeyRope Press. There might be a little gift for anyone who gets the reference in her store’s name. I’m just saying. Support artists! I know I’m preaching to the choir, with this crowd, but still.
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dancing in the dark.
My sweet older daughter Katie got married in June 2008 (easiest anniversary ever to remember: 06/07/08). Hers was a much more traditional wedding than Marnie’s, complete with puffy white dress, groomsmen in tuxedos, rosebud corsages, and all that happy jazz. She hired a professional photographer, who caught this very enigmatic shot that I rediscovered yesterday while wandering through her online photo album:
me dancing with my son
Several things to note, before turning attention to the odd glance:
1- That’s my daughter Katie, dancing with her husband Trey, in the right side of the photo
2 – That’s Marnie visible in the back, in the green maid-of-honor dress
3 – Yes, that’s right, I’m wearing the same dress at Katie’s wedding as I wore at Marnie’s. First, both girls crazily decided to have OUTDOOR weddings in the HOT SUMMER, so something extremely cool was called for. And second, I bought it specifically to wear to Katie’s wedding, and when Marnie’s came up I decided to call it my “dress I wear to my daughters’ weddings.” I’ll have to keep it safely aside to wear in the future when my youngest girl gets married, which will probably be several years, since she’s a sophomore in college.
It’s a very long story with my beloved son – lots of very long stories with him, to be more accurate – so I know everything that lives behind that glance, behind my close hold on him. I store the photo here so I don’t forget about it again.
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in which we jump for joy
I promise I’m not going to keep going on and on about this, but a photo came in from my daughter Katie’s collection and it’s really how I wanted to end my wedding posting – it says it all. Thank you Katie!
And a couple of Marnie dancing with her parents:
Marnie dances with her dad - this is SO them
Marnie and me, doing our private dance to our song
I hope seeing the pictures makes you feel — even a little bit — some of the joy.
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the last of the wedding details
What an emotional and wonderful experience the last several days has been. It’s really one of the highlights of life, when a child gets married. Marnie’s and Tom’s wedding was really beautiful. (here’s a link to the flickr set, with a growing number of photos)
Late afternoon:
me, writing notes for my toast. They put me last because they (rightly) knew that my speech would be the most emotional.
A silent auction of some of Marnie's prints, to benefit the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)'s support of gay marriage
Tom's friend Gwendolyn did Marnie's hair and makeup
FINALLY! It’s 7pm, time to head down to the prairie, where the ceremony will be held.
we all walked through the forest, past the sugar shack, to get to the prairie where we waited for Tom and Marnie to appear.
and here they come! We all broke out into applause when they appeared. Tom's niece Ella had gathered a bunch of prairie wildflowers for Marnie to carry, at the last minute.
This is SO THEM. Even in this moment, there was a lot of laughter.
married! Joe just pronounced them married, after the most beautiful ceremony and vows. And there was much applause, laughter, tears, and joy.
Then we all returned to the Lodge, for a wonderful dinner catered by a local restaurant. They don’t do catering – they just did this for Marnie and Tom. They bought all local ingredients for the menu, purchased the morning of the wedding.
Marnie watches Tom order his food - I love her gaze at him
a moment's pause. I think she looks so beautiful, even in this thoughtful moment.
Night fell as we were eating dinner, and then we had the speeches and toasts. Without exception, everyone talked about how much Marnie and Tom laugh together, how absolutely right they are for each other, and how much they mean to us all. Marnie and Tom had their dance, then Marnie had selected a song to dance with her dad, and then there was our song, one that has enormous meaning for Marnie and me – L.O.V.E., by Nat King Cole. It’s a long story …. but you can bet I cried throughout the whole thing.
the tent, lit up with little bits of starlight and a lot of joy
Marnie's gannetts hanging from the tent rafters
FLYING HOME SUNDAY
Only because I had to, I flew out on Delta. I hate Delta. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever taken an uneventful Delta flight; I’m sure it would be memorable if I ever had a Delta flight that was uneventful because it would be the only such experience. I flew from Madison to Detroit, where I had to change planes (with a 1-hour layover), for the flight home to LaGuardia. Like all my other flights on this roundtrip, I got to the airport to find that the flight to Detroit was delayed by one hour. There were no other flights that would get me home that day, no matter how I arranged it. So I just had to hope for the best.
While we were in the air, someone – one of pilots, we think – came on and said this: “Sorry we got a late start, and we know most of you are worried about making your connections. But look! Look outside, it’s a beautiful day! It’s still a beautiful day to be flying!” And so on. Mr. Mindfulness, trying to reorient us. It made me laugh.
So I got to Detroit, the connecting flight knew there were 19 of us on the now-late plane, so we ran off the plane, raced down the terminal, and raced onto the very VERY hot plane. And then I sat. And I sat. And I sweated in the heat, and I waited. An announcement was made that we’re waiting on the pilot, who was coming in on another flight that had been delayed. Later, an announcement: the pilot has just landed! We should be taking off in about 5-10 minutes! Later, another announcement: “Hi, I’m your new pilot with the replacement team. We have no idea what happened to the other flight crew. We should be taking off shortly.”
SO DELTA. I did finally land, only to face incredibly bad traffic. I got home considerably later than I dreamed I would. But I got a lot of knitting done; finished my Wowie Zowie socks, and got a great start on Peasy.
fantastic socks, taken against a backdrop of your standard Best Western bedspread.
Peasy! Easy! Fun!
the bit of lace on the front panels
And now, I begin my new life as (a) the mother of 2 married daughters, and (b) a freelancer. I’m finishing up the unpacking/straightening up details, finishing a lot of paperwork, and then I start my new life scrambling for work. Know anyone who needs (1) a manuscript developed, (2) a good writer, (3) a market research consultant, (4) a survey designer and programmer, or (5) a data analyst? If so, send them my way!
Thanks again for all your very lovely best wishes, they meant a lot to me.
More later today – for now, this photo and a word to you wonderful people who leave comments. I have to say that your comments have been so lovely, I honestly did feel your caring presence with me! Kate, Kty, Jocelyn, Kelly, Gail, Tammy, Jocelyn, Laura, Pip, Anne, gibknitty, Andrea, Kelli, thank you for sharing one of the best moments of my life with me.
More later today – for now, this photo and a word to you wonderful people who leave comments. I have to say that your comments have been so lovely, I honestly did feel your caring presence with me! Kate, Kty, Jocelyn, Kelly, Gail, Tammy, Jocelyn, Laura, Pip, Anne, gibknitty, Andrea, Kelli, thank you for sharing one of the best moments of my life with me.
July 17, 2010
wedding-eve happiness.
This is the detail that transformed this wedding from a great wedding to a great wedding with a hilarious story. Coleman, the owner of Maplewood Lodge, wrote Marnie on Wednesday and told her that the Lodge would still be great for the wedding, but there were baby bats in the Lodge (it’s a bumper bat season, apparently) and the bat removal guy kind of disappeared, so they should not sleep at the Lodge. Coleman rented a number of hotel rooms at his own expense for Marnie and Tom and a couple of their guests who might have been planning to sleep in the Lodge.
Well. As you can imagine, Marnie was kind of crushed. She didn’t want to spend her wedding night at the Super 8 (or wherever…any place would be a letdown compared to the gorgeous Lodge). Coleman spent the night there Tuesday night, just checking, and sure enough, around 4am, a little bat flew within inches of his face.
Instead of the hotel, when we arrived Coleman said that he’d rented a house in town – a very old house, huge, just for them. At his expense. Well, that’s very sweet, right?! So we went over there last night and *cue the organ* (which happened to be in the living room) it was ca-reep-y. Like, very very VERY creepy. It had that very old grandmother smell (not the rosewater or talcum powder smell), and I just expected Norman Bates’ mother to be in that top bedroom at the top of the stairs. There were random stairwells in random odd places, going up and down. There was a full scary basement – empty, except for a small child’s wooden WHEELCHAIR. I was totally creeped out, but Tom and Marnie and I stayed there last night. During my hot and sleepless night, I was sure I kept hearing music, but I think it was my imagination.
Tonight Marnie and Tom are just going to take their chances with the bats.
We got to the Lodge this morning and started the decorating. I sewed the buttons on Marnie’s dress after doing the final fitting….it’s really beautiful on her, the dress. Really. I can’t wait to see it on her tomorrow evening.
the tent, pre-decorating
Marnie and her little twinkly lights
Marnie & Tom, Katie & Trey, setting things up
For weeks, Marnie sewed these muslin banners. There are ~52 of them, each approximately 5 feet long. I threaded a length of heavy twine through the top of each one, so they can be hung from the rafters of the tent, along with the twinkly lights.
this is a LOT of muslin, i'm telling you
When I left, the kids were finishing up hanging the banners; they’d hung the lights; they painted the table numbers on the mason jars, which they’ll fill with wild flowers tomorrow. We’ll all gather tomorrow morning and spend the day together, hanging out, playing games – bocce ball, croquet, tether ball, volleyball, kickball maybe, frisbee, board games, a little hammock-lying-about, a bit of swinging, some forest-wandering, and a lot of talking. Around 4:30 or so, Tom and Marnie will head into the Lodge to get ready, and around 5:30 or so we’ll gather for photos. Then we’ll all walk over to the prairie — pip, yes, it’s something like a huge meadow, filled with flowers — for the wedding ceremony.
Then a wonderful dinner under the tent, speeches of love about family and these great kids, a bit of dancing under the stars, some marshmallow-roasting over the firepit, and the end of a happy, happy day.
There are moments where it’s all worth it. Where everything that led up to it, all worth it. All the hard stuff forgotten, the tough spots valued and let go of, the love and cherishing at the front of your mind, and you know. It’s all been worth every second.
Marnie and Tom! Maplewood Lodge!
It’s my first time in Wisconsin; my almost-son-in-law said that when you cross the border, you see signs for cheese and porn. The porn signs that we saw were a bit hidden away (they’d come in on a different highway before, and said the signs were plentiful) but we did see cheese signs. Of course.
cheese and fireworks! a natural combination!
Let me go back a little bit. I flew into Chicago, and coincidentally arrived at O’Hare at the same time my older daughter Katie and her husband Trey arrived from Austin – that was a surprise treat. So we met up, got a car and drove to Marnie’s house where we met Tom’s (the groom’s) sister and her family. Then Joe arrived, their friend who is going to be their officiant, and the wedding paperwork was signed.
top to bottom: Joe, Tom, and Marnie (wearing her wedding shawl, even though it was sweltering hot!)
yay! It's all signed! Marnie is happy and Katie is clapping.
Then we all trekked through the sweltering neighborhood to the kids’ favorite restaurant for brunch. Unfortunately, the air conditioning had died in the restaurant. We ate there, anyway.
that little charmer is Liam, and his sister Ella hides behind him.
Then a sweltering walk to the Lake Michigan shore, then a sweltering walk back to Marnie’s and Tom’s place, then we loaded up the cars and drove to Wisconsin, to the cabin.
Marnie and Tom
Maplewood Lodge
(If you look back at this post you’ll see how well Marnie captured the lodge in her wedding invitation print!)
wild and beautiful
it's just gorgeous
a bit of lawn, a grill, a picnic table, and an abundance of wild flowers and birds
they can sit here in the mornings and watch the morning come up
look at the lodge kitchen! what a great old stove at the end
Marnie just found a tick on her bicep, and I think that’s probably a harbinger of things to come. The location is absolutely wild and beautiful, and full of bugs and birds and bats and probably other things that start with other letters of the alphabet. The actual wedding is going to be in the prairie behind the lodge; there are gorgeous walkways through the forested area, a fire pit (where there will be s’mores made by the dozens, I imagine), and lots more to see. Today we’re going to be setting everything up, hanging lights, doing all kinds of things to prepare for tomorrow’s happy event. Marnie and Tom get married.
Marnie just narrated the events so far: Day 1, BATS! Day 2, TICKS!
leaving for the wedding – see you later!
OK! The time has come (the walrus said) – I’m shutting down the computer so I can pack it up. I’ll catch a cab at 5am to head out to Chicago, and then we’ll all caravan out to the wedding site in SW WI.I can’t wait….and I can’t wait to show you some pictures. See you in a few days!
.
what do you call a dealie-bobber?
I don’t know what this is actually called; my dad was a draftsman for an architectural firm and I remember seeing him sitting at a table, with blueprints spread in front of him and a carmine pencil in his right hand, counting electrical outlets. With each touch of the red pencil on an outlet symbol, he’d click the thing.
here's how you use it
I keep it in the drawer with my other miscellaneous stuff next to the couch; now and then I see it and think “maybe I’ll use that to count rows” but of course I don’t. My dad died in 1982, and this is one of 2 things I have, of his. If you know what this is called, let me know! It’s probably just called a counter. But I like old things like this, old machines.
For a bit of knitted content, since that’s the ostensible reason for this blog, I set aside my circle socks to finish (or at least almost finish) Marnie’s wedding shawl. Here’s how it looks now, with the heel flap. I just adore the color changes.
heel flap done, ready to pick up gusset stitches
And finally, since I’ve mentioned that Marnie’s wedding is handmade, I thought I’d show you a bit of her invitation. She is a print-maker and artist and book artist, so she put it all together for a truly unique wedding invitation. Guests received a giant mailing tube in the mail; inside was a large woodblock print of the wedding cabin, done in the style of the old WPA National Parks posters. It’s amazing. She carved the blocks by hand, of course, and printed them all one at a time.
Also in the tube was a small handmade book providing all the details – the when, where, how, what else to see, etc. It’s so charming I wanted to show you a couple of things from it:
adorable, right? this is the front cover of the book.
When you open the book, you get the charming story of the beginning of Tom and Marnie’s life together. She handset the type:
the top of the page (click to enlarge, and you can read it)
the bottom of the page
Then there are a few pages of specific information, followed by the schedule of events for the wedding day. I draw your attention to one part of that page:
look in the red box. are they cute? YES.
I love this. I was never clever enough, or self-confident enough, to think about any options beyond the norm. It worked, and that was good enough!
But isn’t that adorable? Really? It’s not just me, right? She also included unique postcards in each tube for the RSVPs. Each postcard featured a great old woodblock print of the WPA National Parks. Ever the artist, she created a flickr set to show all the responses. They’re often quite wonderful; click here to see them.
We’re dying here in NYC; today it hit 102 in Central Park. Lest you southerners or westerners scoff “102, big deal!” keep in mind that people here don’t have central air, for the most part. They have little window units, if they have anything at all. Back in the 70s, people used to leave their apartments and sleep in Central Park when it was too hot, but then it became too dangerous to do that.
Stay cool, yo.
marnie’s getting married
In exactly 2 weeks, we’ll all be gathered at a lovely cabin in SW Wisconsin to celebrate the marriage of my second beloved daughter Marnie, to my newly beloved son Tom. It’s a thoroughly handmade wedding, and I can’t wait to show you pictures. For now, though, this is my little girl, the one getting married. Click to enlarge!
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- marnie studied with HH The Dalai Lama. That’s him in the middle, and Marnie 2nd to the right
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- marnie and tom
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- wasn’t she adorable? who could resist those cheeks?! not me.
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- her 22nd birthday party costume – startled deer!
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- marnie and tom
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- so pretty
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- all jeweled up, her typical M.O.
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- such beautiful eyes
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- my little christmas elf
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- photoboothed senior picture for Smith College
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- that girl can’t pass a photobooth without stopping
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- triumphant graduation from Smith College, Class of 2006
I finished a project! I finished a project! SOCKS!
Finally! Finally! A finished object I can share! Yippee!! This is, after all, my knitting blog. I can knit this pattern in my sleep, and the yarn is great fun for socks, but I started them during an extremely busy time so several days would pass without a single stitch. The bulk of my knitting time for these socks was subway commuting, so a row here, a row there, you know how that goes.
Anyway. I proudly introduce you to the Minkeys …. pink monkeys, get it? (the word minkeys makes me giggle because I hear it as Inspector Clouseau — Chief Inspector Clouseau — would say it.)
the top/left sock hasn't been blocked yet - the other one has
oh, you minkeys
i love socks.......
The yarn is the incredibly soft Felici, from KnitPicks. The first pair of socks I knit with this yarn still looks great, after a couple years’ washing. They get a lofty halo, but they’re very hard-wearing. And they don’t need any special care at all, double good for busy people.
These socks are for the bride-to-be, my daughter Marnie. When my older daughter Katie got married, she gave Marnie a t-shirt that said “I’m a worm farmin’ power liftin’ bad ass” and that really says it all. Since Marnie has this photo in her Facebook photo album (and therefore it’s public) I don’t think she’d mind my posting it here.
Marnie and Tom, getting married in a few weeks - taken at Katie's wedding rehearsal
It’s such fun finishing something, if only because I feel a little less guilty about casting on a new project.
the wedding dress is nearly done!
marnie and tom, so cute
It’s getting close, Marnie’s and Tom’s wedding – July 17. A number of weeks. They’re really adorable, peas in a pod, and their wedding is going to be fun. They asked me to make the wedding dress, which really delighted me…..even if it also terrified me. I haven’t done any sewing to speak of in years. Little quilt blocks here or there, straight seams and who cares if they’re ready for others to see them. But I haven’t made clothing since my kids were young.
When they were here over the Christmas break, we went down to the garment district to search for just the right fabric. Marnie had already picked out a pattern, and given the setting of their wedding, we thought a nice green linen would be great. Here’s the pattern she selected – a vintage Vogue 1954 cocktail dress:
this, minus the gloves
It’s a simple dress, but since it’s Vogue and vintage, it’s not as simple as you’d think. There are bound buttonholes, a strange way of doing the straps, and darts and pleats deluxe….which means it’s got a lot of room for fitting it to her perfectly, and a lot of room for error. Since she lives in Chicago, the fitting part was tricky. She came here for a weekend so we could do a rough fitting, and it’s a good thing she did.
So I got it largely done, then hit a spot that totally intimidated me. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me, and I so want this to look beautiful, not home-made. So many weekends, I’d say and write “and today I’m going to work on the wedding dress” but the fear and intimidation made me think “well…..I’ll do it tomorrow/next weekend, today I’ll knit.”
She needs it quickly, though, so my mission this weekend was to get it done. And except for some handwork, and making the self-covered buttons, it is done.
just a view of the back
I’m going to get it professionally pressed; we chose a relatively heavy Italian linen, and my little old iron, my no-ironing-board set-up, and my lack of proper pressing tools means it needs to have a professional press. Then I’ll put it in a large box and send it off to Marnie, with my fingers crossed for a good fit.
pink is making me strangely happy today
I guess I read a little too much Elizabeth Barrett Browning when I was an impressionable young teenager, because “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” came to mind when I was looking at the beginnings of these socks, No Purl Monkeys in KnitPicks Felici (colorway positively pink, as if they had to say that). So let me go ahead, then, and count the ways:
I love thee for thy bright pinkness
p!i!n!k!
I love thee for the pleasure of dpns and clever-feeling fingers
I love thee for thy springy feeling
I love thee for the one who will wear these when I finish
Pretty Marnie, in her senior year at Smith
PLUS: I bought a new mattress! Yippee! Hallelujah! Boy did I need one, that’s all I’m saying about that.
in which I hurt my toe. like, real bad.
My daughter Marnie came to town this past weekend, and except for the toe problem and the canceled flight, it was wonderful. She had a bit of trouble with her flight being delayed by an hour or so coming in from Chicago, but she arrived late Friday night tired and happy….and I was deliriously happy to see her. Our primary mission: fit the wedding dress.
Sunday was supposed to be bad weather, so we thought we’d do a bit of downtown prowling Saturday morning, then come home and do the wedding dress business. So off we went to the Village, more or less, planning to wander semi-aimlessly and enjoy each other, and the beautiful day. We got out of the subway and into the sun, and headed a block away, to the Maypole party. This post is photo-heavy, so I’ll put in a jump to save you, if you want to skip the scene. Lots more, after the jump.
CLICK to continue reading if it weren’t for the toe... Continue reading »
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