bekka

rising waters

While I was in Florida last month Laura and I went horseback riding at Forever Florida. It was one of the only times during vacation that I had a break from the duties of motherhood. Alas, my stirrups were too high. The wrangler adjusted them once, and I thought that might work, but for the last 30-45 minutes of the ride, my legs dangled on either side of the horse. My horse was called Okie. He was okay, kind of lacking in personality. And with every step he took, his belly sloshed. Laura thought they watered them up really well to deal with the heat and humidity during the ride.

Forever Florida is 400+ acres of preserved lands in central Florida, actually in St. Cloud, less than an hours drive from Orlando. I loved it there. Who knew you were in Florida without all the tourists and characters?

I knew from the website's description that we would ride thorough water. I forgot to tell Laura. But I imagined a simple stream in which the horses' feet would get wet, not what we actually went through.

Our guide, whose name I've sadly forgotten, prepared us to get wet up to mid-thigh. 

Whoa.

I wasn't expecting that, and I grimly tucked my camera strap a bit higher across my chest.

Riding a horse through such deep water was exciting and scary and otherworldly. It was a small portion of the trip, but the best part by far for its novelty and for its coolness. The rest of the time that we were out in the exposed sun was miserable. It was early, around 10 am, but so humid and so hot. 

Feeling your boots suddenly cool and then the water pour over the tops, down onto your feet, into your boot, is a surreal experience. I just hoped that we wouldn't be swimming with the horses. They were surefooted and we had nothing to worry about. Other than water moccasins and alligators. But really, the only wildlife we saw were deer and turkeys.

The water wasn't as high that day as our guide first thought. When we asked her about it, she said it had receded from the previous day. Perhaps she intimated that at times, it was higher.

Then she told us how four years ago the whole area was a dry sand bed that sometimes sported a little trickle of a stream. It rains a lot in Florida. And changes in climate affect rainfall.

A couple of things that we can do at home, in an effort to preserve the earth for the use of future generations, are:

1. Tell others about climate change and how they can reduce their footprint
2. Repair leaky toilets, faucets, and pipes
3. Compost table scraps and lawn clippings
4. Recycle cast-offs into craft objects
5. Replace light bulbs with ENERGYSTAR bulbs

Hey, today is Blog Action Day. I wouldn't miss that, now.

every girl needs an opossum button

Talk about an albatross. This cabled cardigan was just that. I started it May, the eighth (2009), to be exact. It was going to be Elsa's summer sweater because of the short sleeves. The pattern is free. It's called Cabled Raglan Baby Sweater.

And I finally finished all but the sleeves in September. Debated whether to take it with me to Florida for our vacation. I didn't. Vacation? Did someone say vacation? With a ten month old? No way. 

Anyway, this sweater taunted me, really. I lacked motivation to finish the sleeves. And the dpns, too. 

Which brings up one of my pet peeves with dpns: Why must I buy an entire new set when I've lost one, and only need one to have my five to work on? 

Somehow, I imagined that I could lengthen the sleeves on this cardigan and transform it into an article of clothing that might work in autumn and spring, a transitional sweater. But the sleeves are huge. There were like 40 or 50 stitches, at least on each of those sleeves. 

I wanted to be done with it. I didn't want to look up how to do sleeve decreases, or do any planning or plotting. 

Done. It's done. It's the only thing I've knitted since becoming a mother. Just took me five months. It fits Elsa well. She wore it today. Didn't get any good photos. It was dark this morning and so I resorted to dread flash photography.

She's walking! So every photo I take indoors, despite having a DSLR and thumbing it to the sports setting, is blurred. She has ten teeth, too. I should do a big Elsa update, but I don't know where to start and when to stop. But she's just amazing.

Her Grammy loved it. But Elsa pulled at the button a lot this evening when I picked her up to bring her home. Perhaps the button needs rethinking. It's a button sewn on, but a big snap that actually closes the collar.

Went out right away and bought new yarn to make a darling sweater for Elsa from Vintage Baby Knits, the Floyd Pullover.

Oh, the cables! It was a breeze. A snap. I think I can do cables now. I am liberated from my poor attitude and reluctance to consider cables as worthy of my time. Because cables completely befuddled me in the past. Hooray. This was a great project to ease one into cable-knitting.

What I love about knitting is that I learn something new with every project. I just wish that I could keep everything that I learn in mind so that I stop making the same silly mistakes. And actually, I learned two, or more, things from this project:

1. I should knit sleeves first because knitting them last stymies my project;
2. Cables are not so daunting after all, can be a bit of fun, and they add challenge and variety to otherwise boring stockinette stitch;
3. I loathe knitting with cotton. Something about that nautical cotton (Louisa Harding) was odious;
4. I might prefer wooden needles to my slick addi turbos.

And it's an opossum button because every girl needs an opossum button, don't you agree? It's not a mouse. It might look like a mouse. Okay. Maybe it's a mouse. But really, it was bought in the spirit of opossum-ness. And was bought at a yarn store where one might encounter a pet opossum under the table. 

I like quirky. I hope my girl does, too.

Oops, I missed my fourth anniversary of blogging at bekka. It was October 5 (2005). Sigh. It doesn't seem that long, but then, also, it seems a lifetime ago.

ranting a bit

Cross-posted from my food blog, potlikker. I'll have real knitting and quilting content coming soon, promise.

I've blogged about food for five years next month. And only in the last year have I sought out publicists and asked them for review copies of books published by their companies.

Prior to that, publicists found me, sent me press releases, and offered me copies of the books under their care. Some titles were not subjects I'd normally read. After stumbling through a few of those,  I decided to contact publicists directly so that I could get review copies of books that I have a true interest in reading.

The FTC wants to regulate what bloggers can receive for "advertising" a product on their blogs. It seems specifically aimed at Dooce and mommy bloggers. But that's just my perspective. 

Mothers, especially, have no value in our society, unless they're a celebrity mom or a MILF. And at that level, children of celebrities are commodities, or used for publicity purposes. There is no national paid maternity leave, no paid childcare. Families struggle financially in order to birth and raise children. 

Women become invisible once they become mothers. When I struggle to bring my daughter inside a store, or to exit one, nobody holds a door open, and I live in the "south." As an egalitarian sort, I expect men and women to help each other out in opening doors and offering to carry parcels and the like. 

Many mothers blog to develop a community that they're lacking in real life. If you didn't realize it, motherhood isolates women from our friends, our families. We don't have time or energy to visit. Our attention is preoccupied by the child learning to walk,  eat, drink, poop. Mothers also turn to blogging to share tidbits about their children's development with those distant friends and families; a documentary impulse. Then, another reason for blogging is so that their voices, so often drained by their sacrifices as mothers, are heard.

Arguments are made that if bloggers must disclose whether they've been compensated by a company mentions on their blog, then the same rules need to apply to big media. I agree. Many readers aren't culturally savvy enough to understand the subtleties of product placement in popular magazines. Sure, they recognize a full on advert, but they don't give a second thought to whether the Kitchen Aid mixer featured in the photo was comped.

Ron Hogan points out that we don't see congressional subcommittees formed about the "dispersement of each and every free book the New York Times Book Review receives." And what about all the freebies fashion magazines receive? All the food products that Shape receives then reviews, and promotes in their pages?

Other bloggers have made the point that we are approached by companies who want us to feature their products on our pages. So they want a mention, or they want to send us a sample of jerky, so we can write about it, get the word out. They're outsourcing their publicity work to us. Or maybe they want us to host a "contest" to generate comments about their product, then we're left with the uncompensated administrative work of contest business and mailing and shipping.

They imagine that a review copy of a book, or a sample of detergent is worth the thought, time, and effort it takes to create a blog post? Oh, there are crappy blogs out there, ones that surprisingly attract advertising dollars. The writing is poor. The reviews are laudatory, never critical. And the companies are onto that. They want bloggers to fawn. Bloggers fawn in gratitude for a freebie. And ya'll might think that free is the new black, but 

This blog was always a labor of love. It began as a documentary impulse. It provides information. Sometimes I review restaurants, products, books, etc. But 99 per cent of those are paid for by myself, because I'd still do it if I wasn't paid. Wasn't compensated. For. Five. Years. And I'm still not compensated. I didn't start blogging to make money. But now, when I see how other bloggers are theoretically raking in enough dough to quit their day jobs and being compensated for the swill they produce, well I get a little Oliver Twisty. I want to hold up my empty bowl of gruel and cry:

Please Sir, I want some more.

Making bloggers disclose when they're compensated is rather ridiculous. Seriously, if you have any sense at all, you can tell that the things Heather Armstrong mentions on her blog were sent to her for publicity purposes. Maybe she only blogs about the things she actually likes or uses. I don't know. I don't read her blog. I was mostly interested in her Australian Shepherd.

Is it a problem with credentials? What authority do mothers have? Do bloggers have? There's this sense that everyone blogs because they can and because it's a route to fame and fortune. And sure, it's a platform from which to launch oneself into an industry. Part of it, I'm sure, stems from thenotion that that younger generation has that they're all great. Their expectations are not based in reality. 

So we know that 60 per cent of tweeters quit after a month. But what about bloggers? I read somewhere in the last few weeks, that the average blogger quits after four months (this suggests a year). They lose interest, don't develop an audience, or tribe, or don't make money. Only 5 per centof bloggers stick with it.

Is it sour grapes? Is big media gnashing it's teeth over uncredentialed bloggers who, in their mind, brought traditional newspapers to their end? Nah. I think it's mismanagement. Failure to change and evolve as a business caused papers to fold. 

The other thing that I offer on potlikker/y, when it comes to book reviews, is that I'm a professional. I'm a published book reviewer. Not once. Dozens of times. Published in authoritative, print media. My day job as an academic librarian and my interest in book reviewing and writing have developed my skills in these areas. As the book review editor of my state library association journal, I also solicit review copies from publicists, and I don't get paid for that work, either. It comes under the heading "service," for tenure and promotion purposes.

Asking for review copies of books is different from asking the Ritz to bankroll your next vacation so that you'll give a favorable review on your blog and have all the other sheep who read your blog to baaaaaah baaaaaah baaaaaaah their way to booking their own vacay at the Ritz, too. So the FTC needs to have categories of bloggers whom they'll regulate. Or they need to shut up and attend to something really important. Focusing on mommy bloggers, which, again, is my perspective, is ugly.

Motherhood is impossibly hard work. The only compensation mothers receive is the state of bliss our child's laughter give us. Or learning to see the world again through fresh eyes. Those levels of compensation change as the child grows. And so, someday parents are "compensated" by seeing the fruits of their labors embodied by a full-fledged adult.

The state, the nation, does not compensate mothers for the sacrifices they make. For the workers they produce for the machine. For the soldiers they produce to fight in our dirty little wars. My argument is that corporate American ought to compensate people who make all the purchasing decisions for a household. And they ought to compensate bloggers who shill their products, too. And they ought to fund paid maternity leave, and pay for mothers who work their asses off at home so that there will be "consumers" to buy those products someday.

every little thing she does is magic

Yeah, motherhood consumes me. I'm wrapped up in my baby girl and have little time for anything else. She likes chewing on everything, including my favorite tape measure. I've had it out a few times, taking measurements for batting for a baby quilt I've nearly finished.

Elsa is amazing. Being a mother is the best gift. First, just having a relationship with your child is incredible. And then learning to see the world through her eyes is a delicious, delightful joy. She's almost walking. She crawls like nobody's business and can quickly leave the room if she's not closely watched and followed. She'll be walking by herself any day. She pulls up like a champ; has been doing that for weeks now. She has four teeth. Her top two came in about two weeks ago. They're growing like gangbusters. Her rate of growth astonishes me. Simply astonishing.

These photos were taken in May, when she was six months old. She's nearly nine months, now. Her hair is slowly filling in. I suppose she's like me in that respect, I didn't have much hair until I was a year old.

Hope to have something exciting and crafty to share soon. My work with fun sock monkey fabric is almost complete. I'm ready to move on to something else more sedate because it's been like working with a barrel of monkeys. 

ladybugs & strawberries

You may recall that two posts ago--long, long ago--I mentioned pieces for a quilt top I was working on. Since then, things progressed and I managed to finish the quilt last night and then trimmed off  the excess strings this morning. Also ran a lint brush over it too, to remove the ubiquitous dog hair.

I fell in love with the fabric I used for the binding. It's Robert Kauffman. Of course. I love his fabric lines.

And, despite my normal dislike of pink, I have a grudging appreciation of it now, especially in the form of these ladybugs on a pink background. I recall from grade school, or maybe junior high--when they once were called such--someone telling me that red and pink don't go together and should never be worn together. Maybe it was my mom. But that was a hard and fast rule that I remembered, but never applied, as I owned no pink.

Besides the quilt--which I started a few days before Shelley's shower, but didn't finish--I made three burp cloths in matching fabrics. Well, almost. The yellow quasi-gingham wasn't used in the quilt at all.

In the meantime, since first starting this quilt, Shelley had her girl. The sex was known, but they kept her name secret. She was born about ten days ago and weighed over 9 lbs. We haven't met her but hope to do so when we deliver the quilt and burp cloths.

Elsa in June in Ohio

Babies are awesome. I never appreciated them until I had one of my own. Suppose it's just a personal failing of mine. But now? Oh, I love 'em. I'm interested in them, and will ask to hold them, sometimes. We met Ian's third or four cousin while we were in Ohio and he was teeny-tiny. Wow. He felt light as a feather compared to Elsa's 17-18 lbs.

oh spiderweb, my spiderweb

Pardon the brilliance of the white in this doll quilt. I couldn't get a good photo with all the rain we've had for months, it seems. This is the doll quilt I received from my partner. And the most terrible thing is that I've lost her name and address--but am waiting to hear back from my swap mama for those important details. The fabrics are fabulous and perfect for Elsa's room. Hope to find time to hang it on her wall soon.

From the first moment I saw the spiderweb block--and that was likely at crazy mom quilts--I fell in love. Even tried to make one of my own, but without the paper piecing bit, and that didn't work at all! It seems like in Febraruary I spotted them everywhere. oh fransson's! are fabulous. But they were Alissa's idea for BlockParty!

When I have more time, I'd love to explore this pattern; such possibilities!

just like candy

Last night I rifled through a bunch of available fabric--because the bulk of my fabric is unavailable after Elsa goes to sleep since it's tucked inside the closet in the nursery--pulled a few things together, but then couldn't decide on a pattern. Wracked my brain, even. Sheesh.

You see, I've got a good half dozen of baby quilts to make in the next few months. I've been lazy. Unmotivated. I'm attending a baby shower Sunday and want to take a bekka-made quilt to Shelley for her girl who is coming later this month.

Nothing spoke to me. What was quick and easy? Even paged through Quilts, Baby! to no avail. Then I spotted that Moda Sweet Roll I won from quilter's buzz long ago. Sweet Rolls are perfect for making log cabin squares because they're just pre-cut strips! Such a time-saver.

Log Cabin, Baby. It's sweet: pink, yellow, and orange featuring the traditional red center square. It's amazing how quickly I cranked these out. I'll likely use a lemon Kona fabric as the sashing and hope to get most everything done (selecting backing, buying batting, pinning & quilting, and then sewing the binding) by Sunday. I foresee late Friday and Saturday nights.

Not so sure how I'll arrange these pieces to look most pleasingly; those stripes are soooooo obnoxious. I'll also add another strip or two to each square. But sixteen seems like a good number for a baby quilt.

doll quilts, redwork pillows, & Elsa

I don't think I shared the Doll Quilt I made and sent to my partner some weeks ago. I've been consumed by the flying goose pattern of late. The fabrics belong to the same collection, artgallery fabrics. I especially love the piece I used for the borders. Its whimsical shapes and colors remind me of Dr. Seuss illustrations. 

And then there was the redwork pillow. I mentioned finishing it up in an earlier post. So here's a peek at that. It's a poppy, if you cannot tell. I loved making the center. My memory is horrible this morning and I simply cannot tell you what that stitch is called.  And I embroidered a portion of a John Keats poem in a rainbow shape along the top side. It reads: " The poppies hung Dew-dabbed on their stalks." I put a zipper in the side to make it easier to remove the pillow form.

What else? I signed up for a primitive embroidery swap via swap-bot; am giving that site another chance. But haven't had time to scour my rss feeds to see what other swaps may be going on out there. I really must stop with the swaps. I have far too many baby quilts to complete for friends and family who will have new babes by the end of the year. 

And there's the ongoing nine-patch swap I'm doing, but my photos for that are horrible. The lighting is bad, so I won't share those.

I've picked up quite a few new sewing/quilting/knitting books. They are lovely to look at but rarely inspire me to actually DO anything, unfortunately. What are your new favorites?

Elsa, of course, fares well. This was taken last month at my sister's college graduation. At this point though, Elsa is seven months old. We continually delight in her. I never have enough time to spend with her. While she sleeps I'm wistfully wishing she was awake for me to play with. I casted on for a cabled cardigan for her a few weeks back, but I'll likely rip it soon, because I didn't increase on both sides of the stitch marker.

she sells seashells by the seashore

Last week Ian and I took a day off to travel to Gatlinburg. The Weeki Wachee mermaids were performing at Ripley's Aquarium. I've wanted to see them ever since we drove over to Weeki Wachee Springs and found the attraction closed--it was fall and they're not open everyday off-season; just weekends.

Before and after performances there were photo opportunities with the mermaids. Naturally I felt that Elsa needed a tail to fully take advantage of that oportunity. Yes, she's one of those babies lacking a biological tail. If you're a big fan of Geek Love like I, then you know what I mean.

We ran by the-store-who-shall-remain-nameless and Ian selected the shiny blue fabric. By the time we returned home Elsa was ready for bed, so I measured her waist and length from her waist to her tippy-toes. Then I got to work.

Mermaid tails are easy to make. Really. I would have finished hers in under an hour, but my machine SUCKS. I probably asked it to do more than it could. The body was simply a sleeve with a bit of elastic at the top. The tail I traced onto paper and cut out 2. Also cut out 2 bits of batting and quilted each bit of batting to each side of the tail. 

The trouble came with sewing those quilted pieces together. Even tried my walking foot to no avail. I was so pissed. Honestly. After several tries the bobbin got all flakey like it is wont to do. And when I turned the tail right side out there were gaps in the seam where it wasn't stiched tight enough.

When I make Elsa's next tail I'll probably use one piece of batting, or maybe something else, to stabilize the tail and make it more substantial.

Elsa enjoyed the trip. I've always questioned those parents who bring the babies out to theme parks, especially, at an age when they cannot possibly benefit from the trip. So here I go taking my 6 month old to an aquarium. I didn't expect her to get much out of it. Ian carried her and held her close to the tanks so she could see everything. 

She loved the jellyfish, the snow crabs, and some other fish whose identity I cannot remember. The mermiad show? Eh. Not so impressed. She enjoyed staring at the red LED screen on the wall that scrolled through show times and information. Nor did she like the steel drum music that the mermaids lip-synched in time with underwater. Ian and I were impressed when one mermaid drank a coca cola from a glass bottle whilst underwater.

And she was a hit at the Aquarium. Stacy, the mermaid with whom she posed, said, "How precious!" when Ian handed Elsa to her. Random people wanted to take our photo, even. When I took Elsa into the bathroom to change her into her street clothes, two girls pointed and said, "That's the baby with the tail, squee!"

seriously tired, some sewing tho

You parents knew, didn't you? That I'd reach that point. I reached it. It arrived quickly, as soon as I returned to work, about 7 or 8 weeks ago, now. That no energy at all point. The two or three hours I have between Elsa going to bed at 8, and my going to bed,  is about the only time I have to quilt, sew, craft, knit, or read. I'm usually so tired/lazy that all I do is read. 

I'm slowly finishing up the last of the swaps I signed up for naively believing I could finish them all well before time: purses, doll quilts, quilt squares, and a redwork pillow. Eventually, I hope to share photos of those projects. And I have one ongoing that I've dragged ass on for too long. Promise it's in the mail tomorrow, Sheridan! 

Otherwise, I really miss knitting. There's a striped dress in the spring/summer 09 Debbie Bliss magazine I'm dying to knit for Elsa. I picked up a few test skeins of Ella Rae, not even the cashmerino the pattern calls for. But I'm just so exhausted all the time that I haven't the energy to hunt up the needles I need to try for gauge.

And Elsa's easy at this point. Well, in a manner of speaking. She's not mobile. So she's easy that way. But she... oh she's been drooling forever, since she was 3 months old. And now that she's 23 weeks or 5 3/4 months, finally a tooth erupted from her bottom gum! That happened Friday. She's been temperamental for ages. It's so funny: She rubs her mouth furiously against almost any soft surface, like us, as if she's eating an ear or corn, just to relieve some of the pain.

Apologies for not reading or commenting on your blogs. I have no time at home for any pleasure blog reading, or writing.  I regret it and sorely miss you and your projects and your little ones and animals and all. Hopefully this entry will spur others. Perhaps it's getting out of the habit of blogging that is the death knell of a blog?

P.S. This was my 666th post.  Creepy. Also wanted to let you know that I'm on facebook daily, so be sure to friend me and talk to me there, if you want to.