Heritage Day at Oak View

The first Saturday in October is the Wake County Park System Heritage Day. I spent the day at Oakview. Along with other members of the Triangle Tatters.
This was across the path from us.

Lovely lads, aren't they.They're brothers.

The weather was gorgeous, if a bit chilly. I was glad I had brought a blanket, I used it to cover my legs and loaned it to another tatter at one point.

These gents went marching by. I learned to 'hear' the order 'elevate; fire!'. It was the only warning they were about to fire.

Here are some items I had displayed:

I also had an incomplete bracelet, my incomplete bangle bracelet (I have the thread, I just need to finish), a bookmark and some size 80 thread with edging. Carol made about 70 bookmarks with a little flower glued to a strip of cardstock with a note about the Tri Tatters facebook page on the back. They were gone by about 2 pm.

I bought some lye soap, a soy candle and a little bag. Neither the soap seller nor the candle maker had any in kudzu blossom scent. Quelle dommage. {Hmm, I wonder if I spelled that correctly, college French was a long time ago.}

Here are some cloud pictures; which is better, with or without the lamp?

What about framed by buildings?

Or just bare sky?

Wow, you're still reading? Sunday was not as exciting. It was 'fix the boyfriend's closet' and run errands day.

Donation...Successful!

The last time I tried to donate platelets (and failed), one of the nice phlebotomists recommended that I try drinking a gallon of water the day before my donation. I had an appointment yesterday but I wasn't sure if she meant a gallon the day before or a gallon in the 24 hours leading up to my donation. So I did both. I started drinking water as soon as I woke up, until over the course of the day, I'd drunk a gallon. I also set the clock about 24 hours before my appointment counting that water as part of that gallon.

It worked. The first stick went easy peasy. The second one was a little more painful, but not excruciating. Oddly enough, today, the former stings more than the latter. I watched The Shadow Strikes (from 1937) while I bled. Wow, no background music. At all.

I totally forgot to share these pictures from Palmetto Tat Days.

 Morning sun over the dining hall

 The lake, visible from the dining hall

Maxfield Parrish clouds on the way home.

Anyway, on Tuesday, I spotted this outside my office building.

My very first yarn bombing in the wild.

I quickly tatted this during my commute Tuesday and Wednesday (project, book, pattern and thread)

As you may remember, I totally screwed up the bind off on my socks. I have run a 'magic thread' through the loops (that I could find) to hold them until I can get them back on the loom. I suddenly realized last night that I could try on my sock. Here is the result:

That's right. I frogged it. Turns out, the sock was too small. I adjusted the loom and I'm going to start over.

Tonight is our Traveller game. It's so late 80's. For the second session in a row, we'll be dealing with bureaucracy and paperwork. Our characters got just over half of the signatures they need for their latest contract. And hopefully, have thrown their rivals off the track. I think the engineer is still upset about them derailing his race track plans (they invaded the region).

The GM handled it pretty well. We roleplayed the first couple interactions and then we just rolled dice. We all deal with bureaucracy and red tape in our everyday lives. We don't want to do so in our fantasy life as well.

I'm Home and I'm Tired (Palmetto Tat Days)

I am back home again from Palmetto Tat Days. My friend and I left Thursday morning and arrived at the site in time for supper. We did have a slight problem with my GPS but we called A's husband and he went to the Palmetto Tat Days' website and gave us the directions. We've corrected the problem and if it's at the same site next year, we're good.

We picked up our pre-paid stuff (this year's pattern cd, t-shirt, and kits) and started shopping in the vendor room. The Lacemaker was this year's featured vendor. Very dangerous people. I spent money. I did stick with my 'probably going to spend this much' budget, even if I didn't stick with my 'going to try to only spend this much' one. I bought some threads and some books, as well as a pair of split ring pliers. I had no idea such things existed but oh this will make my bracelets and other jewelry easier to make.

Some of the instructors also had stuff for sale. Some had kits, or books they'd written, or shuttles they'd made/decorated and one person had hand-dyed thread. Noooo, that's not dangerous to my bank balance.

My first class, on Friday morning,  was the Hearts Afire Cross by Sandra. It's all dimpled rings and even a column of dimpled split rings. I used Lizbeth size 20, I think it's Springtime. I can now do dimpled rings in confidence.

 My other class on Friday was a broomstick picot snowflake by Martha Ess. It's from her new book: Fun with Picots (I think that's the title). I bought a copy of it, by the way (and got her to sign it). She made broomstick picots easy. For some reason, I didn't take a picture of my snowflake (I made it dark purple) but here's the first one completed in class.

They had the banquet Friday night. We had crackers (you know, those British things you pull apart with a large pop, they have silly paper crowns or hats, silly jokes & a tiny toy inside).

After that was the attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the most tatters tatting the same pattern at the same time. Yes, I am in those scenes. No, I won't tell you where or when.

One funny note about it, when Palmetto approached the Guinness folks, they thought Palmetto meant tattooing. Even they've never heard of tatting.

Georgia Seitz was the auctioneer and they auctioned off the quilt and wallhangings seen in the video. The money raised goes to scholarships, allowing people to attend Palmetto Tat Days who otherwise couldn't afford it. I bid on one thing but it quickly got too rich for my blood and I dropped out.

There was a night owl class after that but I wasn't feeling too well and headed up to our room. Riet was teaching that class and apparently it was a lot of fun. The sort of class that really fuels creativity.

We were up early for the Early Bird the next morning; it started at 6:30 am. It was a snowflake, one designed by Jane Eborall. I had a little bit of trouble starting but I managed to get one point done. After I made my 3rd mistake, and the one I couldn't easily fix, I decided it was time to stop working on it. No, it's not a hard pattern, I was just not fully awake and aware. They were silly mistakes.

 

After breakfast, I took Abby Small's Crystals n' Cuffs class. Oh wow. Very easy pattern and I want to make so many of these.

After lunch I checked my silent auction bids. I won a few, I lost a few. The auction closed at 3:15, during the afternoon class break.

I had another long (2 session) class in the afternoon. I took Erin Holloway's bangle class. I picked a kit that had huge beads in it so I decided to tat over 2 bangles instead of 1 and bracket the beads between bangles. Here's my bracelet after I finished the 1st set of bangles.

I have it posed on my drink bottle. About this time, when I held it up, I commented that it resembled a 1920's era beaded lampshade. Since I added so much to my bangle (tatting over 2, doing 2 sets), I ran out of thread. As soon as Erin has a chance, she'll send me more. I would have finished if I hadn't run out.

I may have gotten some of the timing wrong on the events but I had a great time. A and I headed home after breakfast on Sunday. We took our time. We stopped several times to stretch our legs, and so forth. I got home about 9 pm. So tired. But it was worth it.


Next post: what books I bought and other matters

What I've been doing (some pictures)

I've now tried kumihimo. Wow, it's easy. I started with the yarn from the kit (which was in Japanese, by the way). I couldn't read the kit instructions so I did what any 21^st century computer savvy person would do: I turned to YouTube. I quickly found some instructions. Here's my 1^st kumihimo braid. Something I learned, get something to hold the loose ends or they will tangle. 

Once that was done, I pulled out some ribbon yarn from an unsuccessful project and wound 4 lengths on spool winders. I put about 2-2.5 yards on each one and tied a knot to make a loose loop for later. Here's some shots of the braiding in progress, both front and back.

And here's a comparison of the two braids.

I finished that Saturday and pulled out some red and black embroidery floss. I have started a spiral pattern braid.

I have decided to enter this bracelet for my tatting entry at the State Fair.

Last week's Doctor Who (Night Terrors) was just creepy. A friend has an adopted child and he found it touching. Eventually. Anything with creepy toys is creepy.

Yes, I know what the anniversary is. I'm very quiet person and I usually grieve in private. I haven't been able to watch any of the memorial services, hurt too much. Yes, crying gives me a headache.

I've been involved in an interesting Fate (gaming) discussion on Google+. It has revolved around the Fate system and how it relates, or doesn't, to Old School Renaissance Gaming. One point in the discussion was that OSR is not a hard and fast point, it's a scale. For some points on the scale, Fate system is an excellent fit, with the exception of the high risk of character death. It relies more on player experience and input, unlike some of the more modern versions of DandD. In 1^st edition DandD, the player would have to say, “I'm climbing up to look behind the statue” instead of 3^rd edition's “I roll my search skill.”

It was not a good week at work. I spent most of the week frazzled and out of sorts. It was a short week but felt longer than usual.

I took a really long weekend, because we had a convention to go to. Friday through Tuesday, including travel days. This was a special gaming convention, in celebration of a friend's birthday. We finally got to meet his fiance. She's a really good cook and we decided that we like her. We ate some really good food; the China Bistro still has really great dumplings. They had a new one; pork and pumpkin. It was so nommy. We ate at Minerva's, an Indian restaurant. They play Indian music videos and movies (MTV, I think), which adds some entertainment. There was also the Shiny Diner; which I wish they'd open around here. They buy local foods and have jukeboxes at every table, with volume controls. The only 'drawback' is that everyone hears your selection, and vice versa.

Our home campaign of DandD 3.5e Forgotten Realms was Sunday, too. We ended early, because we made it out of one zone unexpectedly. Our GM didn't know if we would go attack something else or just leave. GM wanted to time to prep the next section. It was a trifle anticlimactic as we bribed our way out instead of killing everywhere we went. It was probably effective at hiding our trail, though.

After playing, we spent time discussing Dr. Who. Yes, we're geeks.

I re-read some of JD Robb's In Death stories. I've been wanting to re-read Memory in Death for awhile. Let's see, what else have I been reading. I finally read Changes by Jim Butcher. Now I want to read Ghost Story and the last story in Side Jobs. I need to finish The Meaning of Everything.

I went to the bookstore on Friday, cause my mood was so bad that I really needed the pickmeup. I bought a few books, although the one I was looking for wasn't there. I read Must Love Lycans, by Michele Bardsley this weekend, one of the books I picked up. I left the others in my car, so I would get something else done rather than just read all weekend.

Next weekend, I go visit my mom and the weekend after that is Palmetto's Tat Days. Then I have two more weekends and the State Fair begins. One weekend will be Historic Oakview Park event and the the other has the home Forgotten Realms game. I will not have a free weekend until the one before Halloween.

I got a recipe from a women's magazine the last time I was at Mom's. It's for no-machine ice cream. Here it is. I'd recommend 1.5 tsp of vanilla and definitely put it in the freezer, but it's delicious. I used splenda and lactose-free milk and it worked fine.

no machine homemade ice cream:

1 c whole milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbs sugar

quart-size zip top plastic bag & seal

kosher salt

gallon-size plastic ziploc bag

ice

Put 1^st 3 ingredients in quart-size bag.

Combine 4 cups ice & ¼ cup Kosher salt in gallon-size plastic zip-top plastic bag

Place smaller bag inside big bag & seal big bag

Shake large bag vigorously for 6-8 minutes, do not squeeze bag

When smaller bag is plump & willowy, ice cream is ready

Remove smaller bag, wipe off salt & ice

Serve immediately as soft serve or freeze for 20 minutes for hard ice cream

Frustration

I messed the bind off of my sock. The thread for my bookmark either breaks or I mess up the pattern; I'm adapting an old edging from single motifs to a line of split ring motifs.

I have some great books to read (The Meaning of Everything, Changes & Thou Uncommon, Thou Improper Noun) but just can't sit down and read them. I have a lovely coloring book (Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace) but only .3 mm markers, because I can't find any of my other markers, colored pencils or crayons.

Plus someone told me something this weekend that really upset me. I mean, upset me enough that I don't trust talking about it on the internet. I can't talk about it to anyone. I scribbled down how I felt, hoping it would help. It hasn't. Not really. Only time will heal.

Vocabulary test and a Book about OED

I took a vocabulary test and here are the results http://testyourvocab.com/?r=764695. It was testing the approximate size of my vocabulary. Not bad, huh? Feel free to take it yourself. They're trying to compile statistics and especially need teens and kids to do it.

I'm reading a new book. It's The Meaning of Everything, and it's about the OED (Oxford English Dictionary). I want the CD ROM of the OED, but only because I don't have the space for the full 20 volume set.

And Jim Hines wrote a song that summarizes many of my feelings about novels. Here it is.

I'm still working on my Dresdenfiles character and reading the part about magic in Your Story. I'm up to Thaumaturgy specialties. (Are we surprised that spellcheck does not recognize thaumaturgy? No, we're not). I have finally started Changes. I didn't dare bring it to work or I wouldn't get anything done.

I still have not gotten the sock back onto the loom. I think I need to run string through the stitches 1st. As it is, the stitches that are on don't look right.

I finally got my car inspected (I meant to do it the 1st weekend of the month). Now, as soon as I get my tags, my car will be legal.

No Pictures Today

My sock is making progress, but other than length, it looks the same. I should take a picture of my bracelet in progress, except I'm a little disgusted. I ran out of thread.

One of the ladies at the Tri-Tatter's meeting on Saturday showed us something she had just learned. It's called Zentangles.  Despite not having the recommended tools (smooth heavy paper, like watercolor paper & micron pens), I gave it a whirl. I did have a little bit of trouble getting started, because I had trouble thinking of pattern to use. I can see the attraction. I should have turned off the phone or at least turned down the ringer. I was just getting meditative when it would interrupt.

Speaking of Triangle Tatters, we had the meeting on Saturday. They bumped us from our original room because the event in the neighboring room was using the sound system and due to the room design, we would not have been able to hear ourselves think. They gave us the study room instead. I'm sure it was more noise than that room had heard in a long time (if ever). There were 9 of us this time, including the same woman I helped last time. She'd bought Rebecca Jones's book but could not see the correlation between what I told her at the last meeting and the instructions in the book. That's probably because I apparently use half Riego method & half traditional method. I changed my style enough to be all traditional (or was it Riego) so this woman only had one set of instructions to follow. 

My laptop is currently stuck in 'logging off' mode. I'm not sure why. I'm going to try to outwait it and see if that helps.

I am on Google+. It's been interesting. I even got Hangout to work. I talked to a woman in Ireland. Pretty cool.

Sock (in progress) Picture

 

My sock, the heel is done and I'm on my way

I'm on my 3rd contrasting (light in this case) stripe past the heel. I still have a lot of yarn left. I have no idea how tall to make this sock. And I'm not certain it's going to fit my foot. That's the drawback of the toe-up version. I can't try it on what I've already done.

The contrasting stripes are about 3 stitches tall. My gauge, on this loom, with this yarn, is 9 stitches per inch.

It's still egregiously hot, and humid. I spend enough time in AC that I'm not becoming acclimated so every time I go outside, it's like getting slapped, full body, by a warm, wet, flannel blanket. Yesterday, even the wind was hot.

I'm doing some writing exercises, or trying. I'm feeling unimaginative when I compare what I've done to the samples in the book. Is it brevity is the soul of wit? Or is it just a sign that I need to practice more?

Here's a pen (2nd photo) that I got for my birthday. Note the difference between the 2 photos (other than the addition of the pen)? That's how cleanly the ink erases.

Rain! Finally!

We got some rain this weekend. We're still almost 7" below our normal rainfall for the past year, but considering we've gone about 10 days with nothing appreciable, I'll take it.

I finished another half-braid bracelet. This one is Lizbeth size 20 in Caribbean, with bugle 11 in Purple Iris and 11/0 Aiko in Iris beads. this picture is from when it was in progress. I still need to hide the ends on it.

I've made a couple bookmarks recently. One of them used the same thread and one was black and white. I need to get photos of them before I mail them off.

size 20 Lizbeth thread, Caribbean, from Tatting Times, from A Tatter's Workbook

Same bookmark as below, but different background for contrast

size 20 DMC tatting thread

 I went to the bead show with a friend last weekend but I didn't buy much. Here's most of what I bought (except for a strand of black beads, obsidian, maybe?).

Bone disks and lapis beads, to go with my earrings

charlottes and seeds, for my bracelets

I've made some progress on my sock. I'm past the heel now, so it's finally starting to look sock-like.

We were supposed to go see the Captain America movie this weekend but we had a small mishap concerning movie times. Instead we went to see Cowboys and Aliens. On the fortunate side, we discovered that the movies at the hour we went (4 pm - 5:30 pm) were about half-off.

I had to get a new car key cut this weekend. Friday, I got my key caught in a metal mesh and it bent. I managed to start my car and get home but I was worried I would break the key off in the ignition if I tried more than that. The new key works fine. Whew.

Our Forgotten Realms game is progressing. We've gotten rid of the big bads in the castle, now we need to get rid of the guards in the barracks. We did have one faintly humorous moment during Sunday's game. My character is a sword-dancer of Ellistraee. For the non-gamers, I'll explain. She's a half-drow (dark elf) who worships the only good-aligned drow goddess. Most of them are some flavor of evil. Part of Ellistraee cleric (& sword-dancers have some cleric) mission is to convince drow to give up their evil ways and return to the surface and be good people As part of this, my character has been making this offer, via monologue, to every drow we've met. We're currently in a drow city and it's gotten to the point where the other characters can recite it along with her.

In Sunday's fight, we're facing a vampire drow and my character spent part of action trying to decide: does vampire trump drow? If she's undead, I'm not making the offer, but I'm supposed to make the offer to all drow. Hmm, nope sunlight and vampires don't mix, so no offer. I can just kill her. Yay!

This Thursday will be our first Traveller game back in the GM's house. The repairs (post-tornado) are done and he's moved back into it.

Socks (pictures)

toe up sock, in progress

The top sock was made toe up

My 1st sock, made cuff down

The Siege in Chattanooga, Knitting a Sock & other stuff

I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Carrie and I drove up. She drove, I kept her company.

I was looking for a fine-gauge knitting loom (the knifty knitters are too big for regular socks). MSWF is huge, so I should be able to find one, right. Heh, heh. Carrie could only think of 3 vendors who'd have that sort of thing (instead of raw wool, spun wool, dyed wool, sheepskin, yarn, dyes, jewelry, spindles, spinning wheels, knitting needles, crochet hooks, shawl pins, stools, sheep shearing supplies, rugs, shawls, art, etc). We went to the first one. They looked at me like they wondered what kind of rocket I'd used to come to this planet.

The next vendor at least knew what I was talking about, but they didn't have any. The third vendor wasn't there this year. So no knitting looms. One dealer had lap weaving looms, but that's not what I wanted.

We had fun. We ate lamb and met up with some folks from Ravelry. That evening we went to a nice, local restaurant in the shopping center across from our hotel. They had four types of chili and gave you samples before you ordered so you could select intelligently. Coincidentally, there was also a large Jo-Ann's in that shopping center and I wanted to see if they had any Llizbeth thread. The one near me is too small to carry any.

Tatting supplies are ~somewhere~ near the knitting/embroidery supplies so I usually wander around that area until I find them. This time guess what else I found? Yep, I found not 1, not 2 but 3 fine gauge knitting looms; one of them was even labelled 'sock loom.' I bought that and some Lizbeth thread.

The next day, with some help from Carrie, I selected a couple skeins of sock yarn and got started on a test swatch, aka baby sock, on the way back home.

The Siege in Chattanooga is strictly a gaming convention. I played Pathfinder all weekend this time. We were in a warehouse-type building. They were working on it to make it more meeting hall-ish while we were there. And things would have been fine except some {expletive deleted} stuffed paper towels in the men's toilet.

That jammed all the toilets. No bathrooms in the building for a few hours, for anyone. If you have to go, go back to your hotel room. And, while the roto-rooter guy was unplugging things, the air had to be turned off. No air. In a metal-roofed building. In the summer. In the South. Ugh. Triple ugh. The temperature never recovered. At least on Sunday, if you sat directly under a fan/air unit, it was bearable.

I reviewed a book:
Dragon Bound by Thea HarrisonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I picked up this book because I needed a book to read on a long drive. I ended up not taking it and I'm a little sorry I didn't. I would have had a great uninterrupted read, instead of having to put it down for unimportant things like eating, sleeping and work.

I wasn't certain how I'd feel about the relationship beginning (she stole from him, he hunted her down - this is not a spoiler, it's in the back cover blur), but Thea made it interesting and believable. There were some good twists and turns in the plot but nothing felt like deus ex machina.

Pia, the heroine, has a wonderful sarcastic streak, even when it's not in her best interests. And she realizes this, just like any of us might. Her relationship with Dragos gets a little complicated, but in a good way. And they *gasp* do sometimes talk and think about their relationship; instead of going off on wild tangents due to misunderstandings.

This book has me interested enough to look up the next Book of the Elder Races and other books by Thea Harrison.

View all my reviews

Frustration (Tatting)

Ah, it's a common problem. You underestimate how much thread you need, and then you try to keep tatting, after a sensible person would add another thread. Until you completely run out of thread and do not even have enough to tie a knot or hide an end.

All Safe

Don't worry. Yes, tornadoes hit nearby but none of them came that close to me. We just had to deal with some heavy wind and rain. There aren't even any fallen branches, big ones, close to my house.

The storm did give me a migraine, but some migraine meds and a nap took care of that. It does mean that I didn't get as much done as I'd planned on Saturday. I did get my oil changed, so that's one thing off my to-do list.

Sunday's game went well. I arrived late (took another nap) but we got through the fight. My character managed to royally peeve an NPC,which was a good thing. He decided that she had to die; instead of breaking her very valuable sword, which was his favorite tactic. He did almost kill her, but one of the other PCs is a paladin with a unicorn mount, which has healing spells. That kept my PC alive long enough to finish the guy off and go help kill the half-fiendish huge displacer beast. I hate mis-chance.

After the game was supper for one of the players. It's about his birthday so we took him to this nice Chinese place (he chose it). His daughter was a bit grumpy, but she'd gotten woken up from a nap.

Bracelets Galore

Here are some of the bracelets I've made. I don't have a picture of the one I made for my niece (black thread, gold seed beads).

1st bracelet, from Palmetto Tat Days 2010

 This picture is of 2 different bracelets. Both made with moss agate cubes. One has solid green seed beads and the other has clear seed beads with green painted on the inside. 

~hematite spheres, black seed beads and black thread

3rd bracelet I made, black thread and clear beads

in progress picture, amethyst spheres, iridescent seed beads and variegated purple thread, for a charity auction

split ring bracelet, jade beads; lucky bracelet remade