Inspired by Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, craft/fiber art, inspiration, memoir.
When I first came up with a blog schedule, Fridays were Follow Fridays, where I recommended someone to follow here on WordPress or elsewhere on social media. My Friday posts have been spotty, at best, and I have a Pinterest board of fiber art funnies that I’d love to share, so I give you Funny LOL Friday – I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.
I didn’t knit as much as usual last week, instead I crocheted Jeff a sweet cat cave. I caught up with and finished this season of Legion and was thoroughly entertained, helped along quite a bit by the appearances of a very groovy Jemaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords fame) and the – I guess – production/feel of the show, which I’ve mentioned before.
I’ve also been watching Feud: Bette and Joan, which is about the relationship between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford before, during, and after the making of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange star in the show and are fabulous. It’s really nice to see older women cast and starring as older women facing issues specific to older women in Hollywood and in general, even if the show is basically about the awful ways that we can (and do) treat each other.
This week, I also turned the TV off and started listening to a new podcast, S-town. The show is “about a man named John who despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it.” S-town comes out of Serial Productions, from Serial and This American Life, two other podcasts I’ve listened to and recommend. I’m only two episodes into S-town and already things have taken an unexpected and incredibly compelling and fascinating turn. In addition to listening, go to the S-town website; it’s beautifully done.
Well done but not exactly beautiful, I leave you with this gif of Bette Davis freshening her Baby Jane makeup. Happy Tuesday!
As spring approaches, I’m reminded that it’s time to get this season’s bathing suit and associated accessories squared away. I may have to dust off my crochet hooks for these gems from 1970, found here, and some really fascinating tan lines.
30 Day Knitting Challenge Day 4: How did you learn how to knit?
My Mom taught me how to crochet and knit when I was 6 or 7. She’s a seamstress (retired) and took on all sorts of sewing projects for her customers, mainly alterations & repairs but also creating garments from patterns, drapery, and upholstery/reupholstery. My grandmother & great grandmother (& so on, up the line) were seamstresses as well, so they passed things down to my mom. She had an old square honey jar on her desk behind her sewing machine that held her pinking shears, my great grandmother’s collection of hat pins, which I loved to take out and twirl, and size 15/10mm plastic straight knitting needles (white with baby blue end caps) that I desperately wanted to knit with.
Mom taught me to crochet first, I think because it’s an easier way to learn how to keep yarn under tension and you only have to manage that plus one tool, whereas with knitting you’ve got to manage two needles and the yarn. So I learned crochet first and still desperately wanted to knit with those big plastic needles, but when it came time to knit, she wouldn’t let me start with those because they’d be too big for me to manage. I’d heard that line many times before – my family nickname is Midge or Smidge and I’ve always been the smallest both by birth order and size – and so I just sucked it up and learned on the smaller needles. I’m guessing they were US 7 or 8 (4.5 or 5mm). When I did get proficient enough to use those big needles (i.e., my second project: I don’t have a lot of patience for waiting to try things), I discovered quickly that she was right, they were too big for me to manage. As I recall, I was also knitting much to tightly in a misguided effort to tension the yarn (I think a lot of beginners do this) and was trying to make the fabric feel more like crochet. I didn’t use size 15 needles again until 2003 or 2004.
