Crazy Lanea

Bruce Molsky, the Inca, the goat, and the madman

Mike and Tara took me to see Bruce Molsky as an early birthday present last night.  It was amazing.  I've blathered before  about the musicianship to be found in Old-Time.  I think Bruce leads the bunch.  Since he was playing solo last night, he really had a chance to show his range.  Fiddle, banjo, guitar, singing--and all of it so good.  As usual, I feel a bit cruel gushing about a show that the vast majority of people had no access to.  And, as usual, I'll encourage you to go see Bruce play live if he comes to your town, and to buy his CDs, and to support live music, dammmmit.  I'm betting Tara will post her excellent photos soon, and maybe even a snippet or two of Bruce's excellent playing and singing.  Fingers crossed.

As promised, I picked up the mystery loom this weekend from the wonderful Yorkses.  It's a Leclerc Inca (scroll down), and therefore French Canadian.  I want to celebrate with excellent cheeses, and, er, tell me what else I should do to celebrate the loom in a French-Canadian manner . . . I'm far more prepared to celebrate things Nova Scotian. 

It's still in pieces, but I have the manual, so I should be able to get it put together soon.  A bit of TLC will be required--there's some rust on the reed.  And then I'll have to get my friend Carol to teach me how larger looms function. 

I figured that I should bring a bit of wool entertainment with me to the Yorkses', so I brought the goods to make felted soap and pincushions with the kidlets.  What a hit!  Chip and AnnaMarie had spent much of the day painting their house (she's becoming a painted lady, Mathom's End is), and they had to call it quits and get their hands into the wool too, of course.  I brought piles of Peace Fleece rovings and some nice handmade soaps I picked up at Maryland Sheep and Wool.  Many soaps were covered, pincushions were made, everyone ended up with very clean hands, and then we had no choice but to celebrate our creativity by jumping on the trampoline.  And as if they hadn't done enough for me already, AnnaMarie presented me with a book on plants in Scots-Gaelic she'd picked up in Portland.  My language geeking went off the scale.  As usual, I had more than my share of fun and it was very hard to leave.    Sigh. 

And finally, the emerald green mohair cabled cardigan is very close to completion, so I should be able to wear it on Saturday to Rhinebeck.  I need to knit a few more inches of the last sleeve, block, assemble, and add the neck and button bands.  And choose buttons.  I think I can get there. 

My progress was impeded significantly after the show last night when a freaking madman started talking to me on the Metro and Would.  Not.  Stop.  <long sigh / > I let my freak flag fly, as a rule, so I'm used to people noticing things about my clothes or jewelry that single me out as "anti-establishment" or whatever.  I was wearing a lunikeit, like I do, and an Irish handmade spirally felt coat, like I do, and knitting, like I do.  So when the seemingly-sane man asked politely what I was making,  I answered politely that I was knitting a sleeve.  He seemed nice enough, and wasn't drooling or trying to touch me, but I could kinda tell, you know?  He was trying a bit too hard to dress like Johnny Depp and couldn't decide between the Edward Scissorhands look and the Jack Sparrow look.  So he asked if I was tied into the local Celtic community, and I said yes.  And he mentioned a friend of a friend of a friend we had in common and I luckily retained a bit of my natural aloof stance and didn't volunteer too much info. . .  small talk small talk, "I'm happily married" "Oh, your husband is such a lucky man" yes-yes-but-you're-creeping-me-out-stranger-I-am-going-over-here-now-without-you-been-a-long-day  small talk. 

And then . . . and then he started explaining that it's really good that he is such a high level warlock so he can deal with his pregnant 3,000 year-old witch girlfriend.  Because she is very angry.  Because she was once burned at the stake.  And it's his fault, see, because he's part Italian, and thus (not my logic--his) responsible for the Spanish Inquisition.  And the real danger is that she is having a girl, and mother and child together are likely to burn him alive once they don't need him anymore.  Yada yada yada.

I see.  I was a deer in headlights, lemmetellya.  It was fascinating, his crazy-as-a-shithouse-bat monologue.  Fascniating in its insanity.  To compound the oddity of his statements, he said it all with no sense of irony, doubt, or concern in his voice.  He had no doubt I would believe every word of it, and seemed truly shocked when I said I'd heard quite enough and needed to knit in peace.  If I hadn't heard the words he was saying, I could have assumed he was talking about a rather boring football game.  The flat affect--it was strange.  I don't know.  Maybe it's all true, and would-be-Depp is locked in a heroic magical battle with his deranged but loving gal.  I'm not going to visit their happy home to find out.   And I'm not taking whatever he took, man.  Sheesh. It's Monday night, man.  Gotta go to work in the morning, you know, lay off the pills.  And pick--Edward or Jack.  Not both.   True style requires decisiveness.

I can have a free what now?

So, by way of a quick update, I've started the first sleeve for my Rhinebeck-bound sweater, and I'm happy enough with the back and the fronts.  I may need to bend some time to finish it by Thursday.  Particularly because of, well . . .

A while ago, I was hanging out with AnnaMarie at her brother's place for the annual pool party celebrating nephew Brandon's birthday.  Have I mentioned that my group of friends is full of siblings and old friends and we've all slowly married each other's best buddies and entangled our community very tightly?  I've known Scott since I was 17, and we're one of the "newly-met" couples because people remember a time before we met, let alone a time before we were together.  Anyway, AnnaMarie's parents were at said party, and all of the kidlets were running about in a high state of cuteness, and the adult beverages were flowing, and AnnaMarie's Mom was teasing her kids about dropping off truckloads of stuff she didn't want anymore in their driveways, since she had stored their crap for years and now it was payback time.  We've all had similar conversations with our parents, right?  And then AnnaMarie said a rather impressive thing to me:

"My Mom has a floor loom she's not using.  So she brought it to my house.  I don't know how to weave on it, and I don't have any room for it.  You want it on long-term loan?"

I think some margarita shot out of my nose about then.  And then maybe I jumped up and down a lot.  As some of you may know, I keep saving for a loom, and then my duplicitous truck gets jealous and requires expensive repairs, and then I have to start saving again, and then maybe I lock myself in a closet to whimper about it.  Just maybe. 

And then a loom fell from the sky into my pocket.  It a figurative sense, of course--no hospitalization required and no smashed looms.  And then I had some actual big thinking to do.

We live in a pretty small house, so I've been wrestling with the "where the hell am I going to put a floor loom" questions.  But AnnaMarie has gently prodded me with the "Weren't you saving for a floor loom?" questions, and also the "I don't have any room for a loom either, you know, so come get this thing and make me stuff" statements. 

So maybe, just maybe, a floor loom will come to stay with me this weekend.  I think it will have to live in our bedroom.  I have no idea what kind of loom it is, though it's apparently some sort of four-jack. 

I think I may just swoon.

My sweater feels betrayed.

Women's Work

I'm about 50 pages into one of the most fascinating books I've ever read: Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years. I've tip-toed around this book for ages. I got it as a present, and I've been trying to read it slowly, like an Encyclopedia, so I don't use it up too quickly. Well, time to break this puppy. So far, Barber's scholarship seems to be impeccable. Reading about fiber-arts archaeology is almost as fun as actually participating in experimental archaeology. It made me want to finish my string-skirt (you know our ancestors started making those things since 20,000 BC, and they were apparently worn by pregnant women through childbirth to celebrate their fecundity? Woot!). And to keep it when it's done. Even though it will require at least $20 in yarn and won't really be wearable. That's a fine book.

I magically got better at spinning over the last month by . . . .this is too good to be true . . . not practicing. Love it. Maybe I can play magically play the hurdy gurdy now, too.

I am mostly through knitting up a green bag that will have the Uffington Horse needle-felted onto it when it's done. Wanna bet one of my pals tries to snag it immediamente? I have started felting the humongo-bag, but I think it needs a good stomping in the bathtub to whip it into shape. Which is a good idea, because I've been gardening like mad so my feet are already wrecked and it's not quite mid-April yet. Time to paint the toenails to cover up the clay-stains.

Friday, I'm taking Talia and my Mom on the Countryside Artisans' Tour. Well, I'm taking them to two sheep farms and Dancing Pig. We all have priorities: Mom wants pots, Talia wants sheep, and I want yarn, roving, pots, and sheep.

And I'm turning, and I'm turning

Check it out checkitoutcheckitoutcheckitoutcheckitout I'm done with the hard part of the first sock ever. Ok, it's a bit of a wussy sock, in that the heel is stitched rather than worked with short rows, but still, it's a sock. And socks are what it's all about.

And look at all the future socks . . . what have we got here . . . the ball in the center top is some great sock yarn that came in that huge ball. The tag skeedaddled last week between frogging incidents, before those would-be socks begged to be made later by a calmer, better me. Next is some gorgeous yarn from Tintagel farms called Korea. Deeelish--it's a wool/mohair/silk blend That may be too fine for even my feet. Then Lorna's shepherd sock in baltic sea, next to Mountain Colors Mountain Goat in thunderhead and Bearfoot in evergreen. Below that, Handpaint originals in ink blue and chestnut, and some decadent alpaca in glacier from Marion alpacas. Ok, so that last one is not really for socks. I mean, either one of the girls or my Mom will kick my ass if I make that into something for my feet instead of something for their necks or heads. But a girl can dream, right?

What else . . . here is a photo of my almost Constant Companion. I decided it isn't stiff enough yet, so it's going in for further felting. I feel like it should stand more proudly, and if boiling and beating and harsh cehmicals are what it takes to make this bag behave like a man--uh--woman--uh--righteous bag, then so be it.

Here is my take on the ruana from Folk Shawls. I'm using leftovers from weaving and knitting projects. I like all but one half of a row so far, and the offending stitches will soon disappear.

Finally, meet the bane of my craftiness. I wove this string skirt to use as a demo. Well, I wove most of it, and then lost all steam. Some of the fringe is integrated into the weave, and some is worked in post-weave. Adding that linen yarn in and plying it is monotonous AND painful--what girl could ask for more from her hobbies? And, it's costing me an arm and a leg to finish it off. It's made of wet-spun linen yarn, which is quite pricey. And, when it's all said and done, I won't even wear it. Nope. I'l probably give it away.

Apart from working on these lov-er-lee items lately, I've spent time reading first The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, and the getting well into A Dog Year, both by Jon Katz. So, yeah, I'm reading them out of order. I got Bedlam for Christmas and read it immediately, and then rushed out for the first book upon finishing it. Really Dog Year is the second book, or maybe the third. Anyway, good writing, charming dogs. And I've been listening to a lot of Hank Williams (senior, of course) at work and home, so I may be either very happy or very likely to jump from a great height, depending on how the dog-loss and heartbreak build up in my system. Pleasureable heartache, indeed.