a southern gal knits in the north

moving...

2009-10-23T12:45:39-04:00

this blog is combining with my general blog – so from now on please go to

A Southern Gal in the North

for posts regarding knitting, books, music, gardening. etc…

hopefully having just one place to blog will help me be more loquacious

MIA

2009-10-23T12:19:49-04:00

Annoying things

– wanting to make a pattern in a specific yarn that you have stashed

– having moved ALL of your yarn into nice plastic bins and stacked beautifully in your work room in the basement

– going thru ALL the bins to find the elusive stashed yarn.

– not finding the yarn.

– checking the website where you bought it to make sure you are not crazy.

– confirming that yes it was delivered.

– looking thru any other hiding place – bags of wips, shelves in the den, the study.

STILL NOT FINDING THE YARN.

MIA

15 skeins
ELANN Peruvian Baby Cashmere
Peacock

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | BBC revisits Upstairs Downstairs

2009-10-12T18:58:25-04:00

Classic ITV drama Upstairs Downstairs is being brought back by the BBC.
The drama, about a Belgravia family and their servants, was a worldwide hit in the 1970s. It was reportedly seen by an audience of more than one billion.

The series was created by actresses Jean Marsh and Dame Eileen Atkins. Both will have roles in the new version, which will be set in 1936.

It will be re-launched with two 90 minute films next year. Heidi Thomas who wrote Cranford, will pen the drama.

Times have changed
Jean Marsh will return in her previous role as Rose, the parlour maid. She will now be housekeeper to the new residents of 165 Eaton Place, the wealthy Holland family.

The BBC say it will be set in the years running up to the Second World War, with Rose discovering times have changed, as servants are no longer cheap and obedient.

Jean Marsh will again play Rose
Jean Marsh said: "I am hugely looking forward to spending time with Rose. I have missed her enormously.

Dame Eileen Atkins will appear in a new role: "I am delighted to have the chance to star in the new version for the BBC," she said.

The veteran actress previously starred in Cranford, which was also written by Thomas.

"Heidi Thomas is an extraordinarily talented writer and it is always a complete joy to work with her," the star added.

The full cast will be announced next year and filming will begin in the Spring.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | BBC revisits Upstairs Downstairs.

knitting miss bb

2009-09-10T04:15:58-04:00

Working on MISS BB (Chicknits design just published).

9-3-09
swatched Patons Classic RICH RED (yummy color)
(this is the third sweater for this yarn – hopefully three IS the charm)

got 4 sts/5 rows = inch on ~~size 6~~* size 4 needles (i am a rather loose knitter). cant imagine getting 4.5 on a size 8 needle! (what the pattern calls for).

anyway am going to use this but adjust the size accordingly also am doing it all sections together on a circ.

9-05-09
after THREE starts - finally got the right needles and size and after one start of two inches decided to do this in the round. so ripped and started for the FOURTH time - in the round with a steek - eliminating the shaping and the garter border - will add the border after steeking open.
about three inches done last night watching a repeat of THE MURDER ROOM

09-09-09
cool date!

*realized tonight the needles are FOURs !!! i know i am a loose knitter but really! oh well.

This is going very fast - have about 12 inches done of the bottom section - according to the pattern it should be 55 rows of the pattern before the dividing purl rows

The photo has that line at the model’s waist but I really wish the schematic had a measurement from that line down to the bottom and from the purl rows to the neck to give a sense of the relationship of the two sections. have written designer to ask but no answer yet.

09-10-09
after much debating and looking at the photos and recalculating AND factoring in my row gauge (5 as to pattern’s 6)… and correspondence with another knitter and re-measuring my body - i have done 12 inches for the bottom – as I am short-waisted – and am going to leave it and move on to the top… argh onward!

In the middle of sleeping last night I realized that I could always cut the bottom off if its too long and add the garter stitch border… thank goodness for knowing that I am in charge of my knitting.

also thought of starting the top section on a separate needle and then joining later with the purl rows as the join section… but really that is too much work. have faith and plunge on .

photos soon ….

Ravelry project page

Kennedy and Katrina

2009-08-31T22:18:35-04:00

August 29^th is a day already marked with personal memories.

FOUR years ago on the 29^th of August – yes, the Day of Katrina and, now, the day of Ted Kennedy’s funeral and burial – I moved to my current apartment in a village on the Hudson River north of NYC. This past Saturday the coverage of the Kennedy funeral and burial pushed off almost all memorial coverage of Katrina and New Orleans’s recovery (and what about the rest of the coastal territory that was hit – Mississippi and Alabama?).

After watching the wake on Friday night and the funeral and the burial, by the end at 830 Sat night was exhausted and wrung out from crying (although there was a lot of laughter on Friday night). It was a rare opportunity to be a part of a family’s celebration and farewell to the senior member of their clan. At times I felt like an interloper but mostly I was very grateful to the Kennedys for sharing with the world this opportunity to grieve for a truly flawed but hard working, courageous and brave human being.

Watching his widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy (a Louisiana gal, yeah), was incredibly moving. Impressed with her grace and poise, I grieved with her and could only imagine the stress of the last four days much less the last 18 months. It was so obvious to the world what she brought to EMK’s life – a renewed sense of purpose and it seemed humility and redemption. As a Catholic, there are resonances with the Kennedy’s lives with my own that somehow have always been a thread of connection for me.

I was surprised at the depth of my grief and deep emotional reaction to Ted Kennedy’s death. One of my sisters wrote that she felt her strong reaction was more “over the loss of our own father long before he actually died” and she is right. Hearing what a stalwart, constant and consistent presence Ted Kennedy was in all his children’s lives as well as the extended family of nieces and nephews was hard – who doesn’t want a strong father (or a strong father figure)? And for those of us who didn’t have that in our adolescent and adult lives – the well is deep.

I, like many of my generation, remember watching JFK’s funeral on the still new black and white TV – after being sent home from school days before with the dire announcement that “the President is dead” over the intercom. Then later as I was struggling with adolescence, Bobby was shot and then Martin Luther King. At the same time, Baton Rouge was feeling the waves of the civil rights movement breaking from Mississippi and Alabama; although never to the extent that especially Alabama suffered. However, it did touch me personally… a story for another day.

Many years later found me in Washington DC at graduate school at American University. In need of a “day job” to pay the bills, I wound up working at the National Committee, Arts for the Handicapped (now VSA Arts). This group was founded by Jean Kennedy Smith whom I met at the national conference that winter. My memories are of a gracious intelligent woman whom I admired for her charity and the organization. Shortly I left that job of Admin Assistant to take a better position with another arts organization but remember those few months there mingled with my first months in DC - my first EVER living in another city and another state and that close to the North (DC is really a Southern city in temperament, at least it was then). The week after I moved to DC, my parents separated; my first six months culminated with the death of my beloved maternal grandmother the beginning of December. Looking back, I wonder that I handled all the stress – new city, new job, graduate school, being alone in the “north”, parents’ separation and then MaMa’s death. Ah! the folly and strength of youth!

Fast forward to Monday, August 9th, 2005, I remember turning off the TV at noon on that Louisiana-weather (hot and humid) Monday with the relief that (at that point) the hurricane was passing by NO with only some heavy rain and some flooding. It was not until after noon on Tuesday that the Verizon guy left and I turned on my laptop and plugged in to find out what was really happening and spent the day reeling and crying as I comprehended what had occurred. The rest of the “moving week” was spent alternately watching CNN (on full time the moment cable was hooked up) and unpacking and settling in. One of my sisters had her home in the flooded area that did NOT get the coverage the Ninth Ward got – Mid-City. Her house had 8–10 feet of water – almost to the ceiling – and she and her husband lost decades of their work. She is a theatre director and he is an artist and writer as well as most of their belongings. Thank goodness they were traveling on vacation in Maine with their young son and so escaped the trauma of the evacuation and immediate horror. But they also did not have a chance to save anything before the flooding.

The irony for me that week was that I was sitting with all my belongings stacked to the ceiling around me and my sister and thousands of others had lost practically everything. At points I wanted to just lock the door and leave it all – go to NO and help, move to Canada, be anywhere but there dealing with it. The mess that unfolded on the TV screens those weeks following Katrina was indescribably horrific for a native Louisianan to watch – the bumblings of governments at ALL levels including state and city, the despair, the helplessness – and then afterwards, hearing of my sister’s travails dealing with the aftermath – which went on for years.

I look up now from writing this – and have to shake my head. I am writing at a small desk in my recently reorganized study (one of the middle rooms) after having spent the last 8 months on a purge/decultering and renovation/organizing project. Having thrown out or given away from 1/3 to 1/2 of my “stuff”, I am continuing on the path to simpler living; this week’s goal is to reduce my yarn/knitting stash (yarn and unfinished projects). This anniversary finds me in a very different place.

How are all of these disparate topics connected?

Simple living. Purposeful beneficial living. Family and Friends. A full life.

The heartening thing to me about Ted Kennedy was that he lived a large life, made big Mistakes (many of us have a Chappaquidick of our own lives), asked for Forgiveness and moved on – and really that is what Christ asks of us. People who live large lives make large mistakes but they also make large goods too.

Watching the celebration and farewell of Ted Kennedy inspires me to re-evaluate my life – its past, its dreams, its goals. I take my inspiration from those around me and those I admire. Saying farewell to one of them is both sad and reflective.

"Fair winds and following seas and long may your big jib draw!

the Gardening Ravelry

2009-05-13T16:56:09-04:00

Look! Keep Your Garden Organized

Whether you're rocking a full-fledged veggie garden in the backyard, have a stellar natural landscape in place of the front lawn, or are coaxing edibles and bee-friendly varietals from random containers on the porch, this online garden journal is for you.

Folia is an easy-to-use tool that's a cross between a wiki, a journal, a social network, a photo sharing site, and more: it's an all-in-one resource center for your garden.

still here

2009-03-25T00:35:22-04:00

ok... so one post or two in a few months does not a blog make... i know, i know.

just sticking my head in here to say, no i have not wandered off to Ireland or Scotland (oh HOW i wish) but am in the midst of a major cleansing/decluttering/clearing out phase - something that has been on the back burner for a few years and for some reason - in the middle of Feb it moved to the forefront... so lots of throwing out, clearing out, reorganizing going on.

blogging will resume ... soon.

refuges

2009-02-26T00:57:49-05:00

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life:
music and cats.

Albert Schweitzer

Life has been a bit stressful lately – domestic problems (as in housing). It’s been a rough beginning to this year. January was all about helping family members including a move into what turned out to be an illegal apartment necessitating putting all belongings in storage. And there were other things – no heat for the entire MLK weekend and then again the first week of this month. This month has been all about stress over domestic stuff.

One side effect of all the stress has been a HUGE bout of spring cleaning – as in take everything off the pantry shelves and throw out bags and bags of expired or old food and line the shelves and wash and put back everything and clean/dust/polish everything on all the kitchen shelves and all the pictures and windows and mirrors and lamps and bookshelves and all furniture and the floors and wash all the bed linens (duvets, blankets, pillows) etc.

And back to the piano – after 13 months of not playing – and have been playing 4–5 hours a day since the beginning of the month. It was rough going at the beginning as my eyes and ears were way ahead of my fingers. But four weeks on, the chops are coming back….and now thought is going to execution much more easily.

And also now after a bit of a hiatus am full of knitting startitis…. too many things are calling to be started or finished. so off i go to work on one of them.

As for the cats, well, how to imagine life without them?

12-25-08

2008-12-25T02:22:45-05:00

Ladies' View, Ring of Kerry, Ireland June 2008

Once in royal David's city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby,
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall:
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

For He is our childhood's pattern;
Day by day, like us, He grew;
He was little, weak, and helpless,
Tears and smiles, like us He knew;
And He cares when we are sad,
And he shares when we are glad.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love;
For that Child so dear and gentle,
Is our Lord in heaven above:
And He leads His children on,
To the place where He is gone.

Merry Christmas!

SNOW!

2008-12-19T23:05:03-05:00

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge during the snowstorm in New York City.

Photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times