Nashville Stitch N Bitch

gee's bender

Thursday morning the husband and I spent our first night away from our kids in over 5 years. I sure missed them, but HOLY CRAP was it nice.

Thursday morning we got in our car and headed toward Atlanta. We had 24 hours and we had big, big plans. We stayed in a nice hotel, we ate too much, we drank a shad too much, we listened to the music at a terribly high volume, said curse words. If we were the coke and hooker types, we might've thrown them in too. As it stands, we went for The Quilts.

The Quilters of Gee's Bend exhibit at the High was our very first stop. Kay said I would cry and I thought (well, haven't we all at one time or another) she must be a little nuts, but she was strangely right. When I walked in and saw that quilt right away that's on cover of that book I got a little chokey. It only got worse when we went into the first room. The stark room and those quilts looming from the white walls - wow. They had chosen a palette in that first room of really muted tones and almost a spiritual quality - the woman who made the quilt from her dead husband's clothes to wrap up in his love, the one that's been said to be comparable to any abstract painting of our time, the one made entirely of workpants that almost has a Shroud of Turin quality to it - that really got to me in a most unexpected way. The sweat and dirt stains, the really quiet gigantic almost spiritual nature of them. It was like big souls hanging on the walls. Very powerful.

The next room was full of all of the bright quilts, the Log Cabins, the Snowballs, the Pinwheels (and of course you use all of those terms very loosely when you're talking about a Gee's Bend quilt). There was a whole room of the incredibly crazy way that they take off on certain patterns. One of all of the Sears courduroy quilts (which are some of my favorites). Tons more, all incredible.

It was a really overwhelming experience and nothing I've ever read or photo I've seen of these quilts could ever convey the giganticness of them - the power. "Pure" is the word I keep coming back to. The kind of thing that makes your own life feel small and full of silly stuff. Such great art with so little thought behind it that these quilters brush off with the wave of a hand.

Fantastic. And now a fantastic memory.

The next morning, a little hungover, we sat in front of an open window and watched people go by and ate this:

If this comes near your town, even if you aren't a quilt person, try to go and see it!

xo

P.S. A big thanks to my mom for the wonderful kidsitting.

gee's whiz!

Fellow Crafters!

I am on my way to visit Mecca! (or at least the museum that is currently housing pieces of what would be used to construct Mecca or keep you warm in Mecca if there was in fact a Craft Mecca)

I am leaving my house, with my very own husband at an early hour of the morning tomorrow and heading to the great city of Atlanta to visit the High Museum and see! see! see! The Quilts of Gee's Bend Exhibit! I am so excited I could cry.

The dogs are in the kennel, the kids are going to Grammy's, and the husband and I are overnighting in Midtown. I have directions to the museum, hotel reservations, and some restaurant suggestions in hand. Knitting is packed, a change of clothes, my ipod. We're set! We hope to see quilts, eat good food, have some adult beverages and sleep in past 7. It's just an overnight, but it might as well be a week to me.

When I get back I'll fill you in like mad and maybe hopefully have some pictures.

Meanwhile, someone share some a. suggestions on what to do with a bunch of vintage feedsack and b. some more good Atlanta restaurants that might be near Midtown. Leaving early in the a.m.

xo

P.S. - Happy Birthday Benny B.!

living in the moment

I can't remember what I did earlier today, much less earlier this week. If you asked me to recall the highlights of the week, I could dredge up some chaotic memories of hastily made lunches and maybe a trip to the zoo.

While that doesn't sound awful really, I would like better. I think having kids has done something to me. Stripped away my ability to have a moment at a time. I live only in the next minute... planning meals, what's after naptime, what we're doing tomorrow and who has to be where. If I were in AA I would be screwed.

Here is my new plan to live more in the moment:

1. Being more mindful in my daily hygiene routine. I'm going to wash my face and concentrate on the feel of the soap. About how my skin holds in my inner organs every single day and how terribly I pay it back by not even applying moisturizer most of the time because I'm thinking about those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I need to hurry up and make. But then I'm going to forgive myself for thinking about the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apply a Biore Pore Cleansing Strip and revel in my renovated pores.

2. Listening to others. I'm going to give in to "Mama? Mama. Mama. MAMA! Um, I forgot." and refuse to let my thoughts wander from the other adults at the preschool picnic's prattle about Bunco nights. You don't really know someone until you walk in their shoes so I'm going to ask to try on their shoes while I listen to their mindless crap. If they are really cool shoes, maybe I'll ask to wear them around for a while.

3. Driving. I'm going to slow down until I'm pretty damn close to the speed limit and ignore the honks of others behind me. I will turn off my mobile phone and close my eyes and focus on my breath and "see" myself riding along that Road Not Taken, taking responsibility for my life. I will not note the juice boxes in the back seat or the Goldfish in the leather seats. I will be polite when the police officer hands me the ticket.

4. Becoming close to nature. I will go for walks in the woods more often, creating a quiet space for myself. I will notice that I am lost, and accept my lostness, because really, I do lack a sense of direction.

5. Whacking others with a big stick. If other parents try to tell me of their fabulous lives of devotion to their children where they only live moment to moment basking in the holy glow of the parent/child relationship, I will whack them with a big stick and tell them to suck it.

As the sun sets on day 6 of the husband's out of townness, peace fills my soul at the idea of my plan. BUT WAIT! If I'm planning things to do to live in the moment, I'm not ACTUALLY living in the moment, but really I'm planning again.

Oh fuck it.

The kids made it through the week fairly unscathed, bags were made, flowers bloomed, seeds were planted, knitting was done after bedtime, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were eaten. Life ain't bad.

xo

to-do list

When Jim goes out of town I, for some reason, think that I will have BUCKETS of time on my hands. Even thought I am short an adult and the kids have me outnumbered, even though the chores are doubled and the alone time is scarce, I am just SURE that I will stay up late working far into the night on all of those projects I've wanted to do! And then of course, he leaves, I am short an adult and the kids have me outnumbered, and the chores are doubled and the alone time is scarce and I just get through my day and maybe I knit a while and watch a movie but as for the working far into the night? Har de har.

BUT STILL. The dream persists. Jim leaves this week for 6 days, and already my to do list looks something like this:

1. Finish the king size quilt
2. Make another quilt from scraps trying 8 new techniques that I know nothing about
3. Perhaps embark on a new, highly involved hobby that involved me gathering a bunch of supplies from 12 different locations
4. Plant the whole garden
5. Learn to at least read Japanese

Who am I kidding? I'll be lucky to get 8 rows done on....

THE KNITTING PROJECT THAT LIVES

Yes folks, a project was started, was almost frogged, but in an act worthy of Tibetan monk status that I will call "Goddammit Just Finish Something For A Change" I forged ahead. Even if my wishy washy-ness persists, I shall move on with the project and dammit I will LOVE IT when I am finished. I will.

It is an aran shawl - actually more like a wrap. And this sucker is sturdy. No flippity floppity dainty lace for me. Are you kidding? We're about to enter June! Prime time for knitting sturdy, Aran, woolen things to shelter you from the Hebrides winds. I did this last year at exactly this same time - thought a wool wrap would be perfect knitting. But hey, whatever gets you through your husband being out of town for 6 days you know?

This is a basket weave seed stitch wrap about 7 feet long and eventually it will even have pockets. I made one for my mom for Christmas a couple of years ago out of Manos and really wanted one for myself but just knew I'd never get around to it. Then the knitting goddess dumped that trash bag full of Auracania Nature Wool in my lap last week and there you go. It's comforting to knit too... easily memorized pattern, repetitive, I love the wool, it smells nice. Hurray! The knitting slump is broken!

Pray for me in my 6 days of need that they don't overthrow me or something. And I really would like to at least get around to the Japanese thing.

xo

they aren't much, but they're mine

I have exactly 2 strawberry plants. Not enough to make strawberry pie with, but enough to pick when I see a ripe one and maybe share with the kids and feel satisfied with my part with their passage here, and specifically, to my backyard. This is their second year - last year we only got a couple, this year we have a ton. I just ate these and they were wonderful - sweet, a little warm (I prefer warm to cold, I think it makes them sweeter), and much more delicate taste-wise than the grocery store variety.

I suppose that's as good as any of a segue into the promised - good, bad and ugly of food sent to me last week:

My friend Kim from Louisiana says they eat "Turducken" - "It's exactly what it sounds like - a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey"

My friend Chelle says, "In my hometown of Winchester KY there is a restaurant called Hall's. They serve "lamb fries" as well as a very good beer cheese. As a young girl I really liked the fries. Until my uncle finally informed me that they were lamb testes. niiiiiiiiice."

daphne says fry bread. What the hell is fry bread?

joy says potato chip cookies.

Jennifer says, "The weirdest thing I know of that people in the Pacific Northwest is geoduck. I have never eaten it myself, but my favorite sushi chef serves it raw to a few customers who don't mind chewing for a really, really long time. By the way, it's not a duck. It's a clam that looks like a sex toy."

My friend Susan says, "In NYC, during the Italian Street Fair, you can buy mozzareepa. It's a HUGE block of mozzarella cheese battered and fried into a giant, oozing square of deliciousness. The grease literally leaks through the plate and the wad of napkins you hold the plate with. "

Chris suggested deep fried cheese curds.

clair says she enjoyed duck's blood soup as a girl. Um, ew?

My friend Kim says, "In central Florida, we eat "swamp cabbage". It's literally the insides of palmettos and palms. You boil it up just like cabbage, throw in a little pork for seasoning and enjoy. I'll be begging for it next month when I go home."

nicole said, " While I wouldn't call this a regional food, one of my favorite foods that I have only ever heard of right here in San Francisco is India Pizza. It is pizza topped with tandoori chicken, garlic, cheese, eggplant and general curry deliciousness. I am lucky enough to live within delivery distance of Zante Pizza & Indian Food, the purveyor of this odd & awesome delicacy."

We also had entries for "menudo", pickled hard boiled eggs, and "scrapple" (which I actually saw in the freezer section of the grocery the other day and was for some reason confusing in my mind with "chum" and really it's probably not too far off.)

That clam sex toy makes me laugh when I think about it still.

Since Maeve was little she has always done little artsy things around the house - drawing and painting, yes, but a lot of... mixed media. I have taken pictures over the years and they are really hilarious.

We have this dog on our front porch made from scrap metal and I came home the other day to find she had given it her own touch.

This was lunch yesterday. I saw her arranging it and asked what it was she said it was a building. I moved the carrot to the "door" area and said, "there's your door!" and she moved it back and said that the door was already there (implied by the blank space). I asked what the carrot was then, and she said that it just looked nice. And well, you can't argue with that.

I forgot to mention that susan suggested, after being inspired by Ann and Kay's book, that perhaps I should've knitted those unstrung leis together somehow. Perhaps a fabulous shower curtain? And it actually sounds like a pretty good idea. Maybe I could knit my own pool floats.

Thanks everyone so much for your nice birthday wishes! As much as we say we don't like birthdays when we get older, every girl needs nice birthday wishes.

xo

thirty eight is grrrreat

I'm not sure if you remember this (and really, I'm pretty foggy on it myself) that I am a bona fide hand-knitter. Really! I am.

This is the picture in which you can see genuine hand knit articles knit by my own hands! They may have taken weeks and in one case cost me a world of heartache, but there they are! Feast your eyes upon them.

Something has happened to my knitting life and it has been going on for about a year. I love knitting, but frequently find myself just stumped by it. This didn't used to be the case, but more and more now I find myself stuck when faced with yarn and needles.

I will admit that I have scaled back - not into anything that requires me reading a chart or that isn't easily memorized, or that I can't just make up as I go - too much going on these days around here. If it isn't completely portable and isn't really basic, it will languish and finally die a sad death around these parts. It has to be able to travel, to flex easily, to not be too fussy or frilly or needful. And dammit, I'm just too tired at night (my only real knitting time) to have to think too much about my hobby.

Worse, when faced with starting a new project (especially in the last 6 months) I have some kind of terrible project anxiety - not about performance, but about the project. I have ripped out countless projects only to start again with another one only to finally lay the yarn down and pick up another. It really makes it tough to finish anything (or hell, to START anything for that matter) and is a frustrating endless loop - I'm starting to know that when I finish the project that I finally found comfortable and fun to knit, I start to dread the process of starting another project. I WANT to knit something else, but finding something I want to do with the right yarn and the needles and maybe a pattern is just... so crazy-making. WHAT IS IT? I am driving myself insane.

But I have been knitting! And I do still knit! Or at least I have good intentions. There is proof.

ARTICLE ONE: A pink Teva Durham scarf knit with some Stacy Charles merino bought from the bargain bin at sheila's. This isn't the heartachey one. This one is the one I knitted through the rash of local book signings and afternoons at the park while I sat on a bench and tried to look like I was aware of my childrens' whereabouts.

ARTICLE TWO: The heartache wrap. For one of my kids' teachers who liked one I had on at Christmas. Now here's the painful part - I knitted it with some kind of ethereal kid yarn on size 19 addi turbos. I think possibly there might not be a worse combination of yarn and needles in all of the universe. Slick, giant, unweildy needles and teeny, easily tangled yarn. Not the brightest of knitting ideas, but I do like the wrap.

ARTICLE THREE:

A giant bag of yarn bought again from sheila. And really, I'm not kidding, this is the bag they had to give me to cart out my purchase. A trashbag. Sheila closed out her Auracania wool and cotton with a giant discount and I can proudly say that it is now all, except for about 4 skeins, mine. Now, if this doesn't show good knitting intention, I don't know what does. And what lovely colors! The problem already here is (and you might've seen this coming if you have kept up this far) I have swatched and I have started 3 things already with some of this yarn and ripped them out. Do I need therapy?

Today is my 38th birthday and in an interesting turn of events also my boy kid's 3rd birthday. It has rained buckets around here today making for a drag of a birthday when you were hoping for a picnic, but he doesn't seem to care. He's on a special birthday trip to the ultra-cool toystore with Dad. The husband and I had date night last night and we were sitting at a bar after our movie and the young bartender asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I tried to explain about the Gee's Bend ladies and wanting to do a trip to see them in Atlanta, but I realized mid-explanation what it must sound like for my 25 year old bartender to hear that I wanted to go see some quilts in a museum for my birthday present. I have to say 38 is great. It's less of a transition than 35, and it's a hell of a lot less angst-ier than 25. Take that, bartender girl.

Lastly, there are so many yummy foods around the country. And apparently an equal number of beloved disgusting ones as well. I'll let you judge for yourself which ones are which next entry. Meanwhile, our winner via random drawing by five year old girl of the beloved Mason Dixon Knitting autographed book is daphne! Send me your address girl!

Happy Birthday to me!

xo