Today was dirt track racing for Ed and his folks. It was laundry day for me. But it wasn't all drudgery. My niece came over to hang out with me. We had a long visit. Our first since Thanksgiving week. And we watched 7 episodes of Gilmore Girls. Beginning with the last two from season 6 which we'd both seen multiple times before but wanted to set the scene to segue into season 7. She had loaned me her Gilmore Girls seasons 1-6 two years ago and I took the first three with me to Longview to share with my sister. Got her hooked on them and surprise, surprise got my mom hooked on them too. We had to ask ed to mail the next three in March which we had watched by mid April. My sister and mom hated the season finale cliffhanger of season 6 as much as I had when I saw it the first time in August 2007. So much so, they decided to order season 7 online. I contributed part of the cost and the idea was to put it with the rest when I returned them to my neice. I watched season 7 with them in late April and May. I've been looking forward to watching and talking about the season 7 episodes with my neice ever since. We are both ga-ga over the Gilmore Girls.
It's already dawn on Sunday and I've got to be up and ready to go before noon as we're having a family pic-nic at the river. My neice will be returning home afterwards and we won't get another chance to visit or binge on Gilmore Girls until late August as she is leaving next weekend for a stint in Youth Corp
I opened this post during an intermission while my neice was on the phone while it was still light out but didn't get anything written before she was ready to get back to the next episode. We had to take a break when Ed and her grandparents got home from the races but after everybody else went to bed we started watching again. I finally called it quits at 4AM even though she was game for one more. But I still had to wash the dishes we'd used today and post something here or break my over two year streak of daily posting.
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The inventory I took earlier this week of my sewing and craft projects in process got me to thinking that it was time I did the same for my fiction WIP in preparation for printing hard copy of everything for the first time since 2001 and for choosing this year's NaNoWriMo project from among those of projected novel length not yet having that honor and still under 2000K of scene work.
By next week's FF I'll have selected a story to focus my finish-line intentions on for the next couple months. Not necessarily a novel tho possibly a chapter in a novel (most of my novels feature chapters that can stand alone as a short story).
By the end of August, if not sooner I will have settled on which novel to focus on for this year's NaNo so I can begin prepping it and doing any necessary research. The candidates are graced with an * below.
By Their Fruits ( A series aka The Fruits of the Spirit story world)
The Substance of Things Hoped For (Faye's Story. The four titles below are all short stories with Faye as POV and also chapters in this novel)
Of Cat's and Claws and Curiosities Strange Attractors Making Rag Doll Babies and Million Dollar Maybes Cat Apostrophe
Home is Where the Horror Is (aka Crystal's Story) *The Lever of Love (Julia's Story) *To Sip the Light Prismatic (Brook and Kay's stories)
Seduced by Death (Book I of SLP) Enthralled by Life (Book II of SLP) ___Majoring in Marine Biology (a chapter in SLP & a piece of a short story that was my first NaNo novel)
The Woman Who Swallowed a Baby Brooding Instinct (second NaNo novel) *Tale of a Wail Spring Fever (forth NaNo novel) Storyteller's Spouse (third NaNo novel) *Braided Rainbows *Making Determinations Mobile Hopes (fifth NaNo novel) Hitches and Glitches and Snags in Her Stitches *Must Everything that Rises be Submerged?
Several of the sewing projects I've got going which. These and more will be described individually below.
I am embarking on a finishing project for the several sewing and craft projects I have going. I'm hoping that by posting about it here, I will be more motivated to stick to a plan to wrap most of them up in the next six to eight months.
As you can see my working environment in this room is often compromised so its nice to be able to take a project elsewhere. I also like to take a project with me whenever I leave the house. I never know when a free minute or two might be available. And pulling out a needle or crochet project is more acceptable socially than pulling out a book. :)
Below, in no particular order, are the in-progress sewing and craft projects I currently have in portable condition and which are also high priority:
The sixteen naked bookmarks discussed extensively in yesterday's post. I'm planning to offer several as prizes for the next Read-a-thon in October. And more are slated for birthday and Christmas gifts over the next year.
This picture is not current. It was taken over a month ago in Longview and a few of those have been finished and given away. And many more added.
The sweet pea vine embroidery on my Mom's sweater which I've promised her she'll have by the time it is cool enough to wear it in Washington--early October.
The tank top I'm embroidering the neckline for my sister's birthday--this week!! Not even started yet!!! But I want her to have it for a road trip she is taking later this month. The design I have planned is very simple and shouldn't take me long.
A needlepoint three panel Bible cover with room for a note tablet for my niece whose birthday was also this week so I'm aiming for Christmas.
Again--sigh.
I started this for her sixteenth birthday and she just turned 25.
But at least I finished the needlepoint step while in Longview. Now I need to turn the edges in and cut out the cloth for the lining and sew it on.
A needlepoint three panel notebook and file cover for myself. Still have several hours of stitching on the front and then sewing on the lining. No time pressure I guess though I did start this a year before I started the Bible cover for my niece. Sigh.
Several embroidery, needlepoint or cross stitch bookmarks and book covers slated for Christmas or birthday presents in the coming year.
A needlepoint on plastic canvas cover (front and back) for a writing tablet. It's to include space for filing loose pages and carrying writing implements. Maybe stamps and envelopes as well.. Not begun yet but planned and all materials gathered for it.
A needlepoint on plastic canvas cover for a small spiral notebook like the one I made for my traveling writer's notebook.
I always intended to make a second one either for a different purpose notebook for myself or for a gift. I bought the materials for two when I made the first one in 2005. That one only took a week from the day the materials were bought because I was highly motivated by the fact the original covers on my writer's notebook were falling off.
A 10x10 inch petit point mandala. Petit point is needlepoint that is more than 16 stitches per line inch. I believe this one is 18 count but I didn't stop and count while taking the picture. This will probably be a wall-hanging but possibly something functional like a notebook cover or purse. I started it once but there are no patterns or pictures with it and I can't remember my plan except the concept 'mandala' though possibly I was going to try free-form--make it up as I went. I'm not currently loving what I see here so I'm probably going to take out what is already there and restart it. Maybe I'm not cut out for free-form? But maybe I should make myself give it a whirl anyway. As an exercise in trusting the creative process.
A long sleeved red blouse needing mending at the seams in several places and one sleeve's hem. Would be nice to have it wearable by October.
A short sleeved blue and gray shirt needing mending on the shoulder seams.
A long sleeved white blouse with over long sleeves which I wish to blouse with elastic at the wrist. I want it wearable no later than October 1st.
A blue table cloth with a white geometric design embroidered around the edge. It's too small to be a dining table cloth and probably not of the right fabric for it either. I was picturing it as a runner for a dresser, upright piano, or lamp table.
I've also considered making it into a throw by backing it with fleece or flannel. I was excited about it when I bought the thread for it ten years ago but I've packed it around with me ever since and keep dithering on design and function. It was once meant as a gift but I may choose to make it for our future home. We are going to be more bereft of the furnishings and decor for our next place than we were as newlyweds seeing as there won't be a bridal shower and wedding presents and we are starting from nearly scratch. So if I don't settle on what and who in time for this to be a Christmas gift this year, I'll aim for finishing it for our home sometime in the next year.
The knee length wind breaker which my sister scorched with the iron across the left breast in 2007 while trying to iron on one small butterfly to cover a small tear and then ironed on a bouquet of butterflies to cover the scorched area but the edges of the iron on pieces keep curling and starting to peel off after washing so we brainstormed the idea of sewing an outline of sequins around tha edges. I would like to have that ready to wear by the time the weather permits--probably mid to late October.
The dolphin cross stitch which is 90 percent finished. The only cross stitches left are the decorative metalic gold ones framing the picture. I've got one of the two rows going around about a third done. Then there are a lot of other decorative and enhancing stitches that need to be applied--more akin to embroidery than cross stitch per se.
Neither the dolphin nor the orca project (below) are small really but they are compact and portable to the extent I could work on them here on my side of the bed, out in the yard or in the living room when there is company as long as I have the necessary light source.
The orca cross stitch barely begun. Both these cross stitch kits were bought the year Ed got his Silicon Valley job 1999-2000 and started before he lost it and we were forced to move in with his parents in 2001. I was making them to hang on the walls of our beautiful double wide mobile home in Sunnyvale. I lost heart for the projects when we lost that home. But Ed thinks we are less than a year from being able to have our own place again. In light of which I would like to put my heart back into them as a token of my faith that will really happen this time. I'm picturing them gracing the walls of our new place.
I now have sixteen crocheted bookmarks off the hook and waiting to have their tails tucked and their wardrobe (ribbons and beads) applied. I've been saying since the twelfth one that its time to stop starting new ones until I get the de-hooked ones tended to. The problem is that the crocheting step is so much more portable than the dressing up steps. I can often keep a project on the hook in a pocket or very small purse and pull it out when I've only got a minute or two of free time. Like waiting on the microwave to heat my tea water, during commercials, waiting on a page or podcast download, waiting on an IM response and so forth. The wardrobe step entails having a place to spread out the ribbons and beads; having excellent lighting coming from over the left shoulder; and time for thoughtful concideration and dithering, experimentation and fiddling.
I have set myself to the dressing up step several times since I arrived back in Phoenix two weeks and two days ago. The first time I ended up having to reorganize my ribbon box. The second time, which I blogged about here, Merlin used the tray I had laid out the bookmarks and dozens of beads as a launching pad to get to his window perch. Big mess.
The third time, last Thursday, I discovered the in-waiting bookmarks were all curling at the corners and edges and needed to be blocked and dampened. Pinning the corners of over a dozen of them was a time-consuming and tedious job. While I waited on them to dry under the fan, I got out the ribbons and beads and put together a portable kit for bookmark dress-up.
I began by measuring out and cutting one to several lengths off each of the ribbon spools of either 10 or 20 inches. The 10 inch lengths are for the simple, usually beadless bookmarks with a single ribbon threaded through the center row of holes. The 20 inch lengths are for the doubled over ribbon with a large bead in the top loop and sometimes small ones on the bottom tails.
I lay these lengths of ribbon in a clear plastic bag long enough that only the 20 inch ones needed to be folded over. Later I placed the waiting bookmarks in one corner of the same bag.
There were also several cards of rickrack scavenged from my mom's sewing remnants not shown in these pictures which work like ribbons.
Then I selected several dozen of the large beads and two snack baggies full of smaller beads and key rings and charms. I lay the beads and rickrack in the small tray (aprox 5x7 inches and half an inch deep) and lay the tray on top of the bottom end of the bag holding the ribbon and bookmarks and then folded the top of the bag over the tray. This prevents creases forming at the five inch mark on all the ribbons.
Then I slid that package into the portable pouch:
This was one of the pouches the shams I bought for 99 cents at the liquidation store in Longview came in. I bought them just for this purpose--for holding portable craft projects. I wouldn't have bought the shams if they hadn't been in these pouches. But now they are holding a quilt and comforter for the summer and serving as props for reading or watching TV in bed.
I think I need to learn how to make pouches like this so I don't keep buying things I don't really need just to have their packaging. :)
The pouch is approximately the size of an average hardback book if filled to capacity which this one isn't. Yet.
My primary motivation for preparing that pouch last Thursday was to take the bookmark project to the dirt track races on Friday. After I'd spent hours getting my bag of books and crafts ready to go, Ed told me I might want to reconsider because they didn't call it 'dirt track' for nothing and proceeded to describe blowing dust and flying mud clods. But instead of scrapping the plan entirely, I repacked the bag so that the seven or so spools of crochet thread were protected from the blowing dust and flying mud clods.
I put all the spools into one large plastic bag and pulled the end of each thread through the top before sealing all but a small hole at the top of the bag. That bag represented over fifty percent of the volume of the big bag containing crafts, books, binoculars, camera, waterbottle, white cane, visor, clipboard and notepad, etc.
One of the books was a crochet stich bible with how-to sections for beginners. I spent some time looking at it and studied how to change thread color mid project so I could start the bookmark I'd been designing in my head for a week--a red, white a blue one. What better time to be making it than July 4th weekend.
I had finished four of its seven rows before the announcement that the lights were about to go out for the fireworks and I had to speedily put it away and pack my bag. There was one race after the fireworks but I didn't get it out again. I read instead.
I never did get the dress-up pouch out Friday. I was holding off until I finished that red, white and blue bookmark but I spent more time reading, watching the races while taking pictures and notes. and watching the crowd. I was there partly as field research for a story afterall.
When I got home Friday night, I had to unpack the big bag as there was no place to keep it while that big. But I didn't unpack the thread spools as I couldn't until I'd gotten that bookmark off the hook so I could untangle all the thread and rewind the spools. So the bag of spools got set on top of the open drawer the spools belong in where I was forced to stare at it whenever I was at my laptop workstation.
So Monday I finally picked it up and finished the last three rows, blocked and misted it and then got the thread wound back onto the spools and the spools back in their drawer. That is the middle of three drawers in my sewing chest. The top and bottom drawers are currently serving as jumble drawers. Not junk drawers as its all sewing and craft related but it is all stuff I DID NOT take with me to Longview and thus did not get sorted and organized. The bottom drawer is almost entirely empty bags while the top drawer does have some actual supplies and tools but is largely empty containers I've imagined useful for organiaing.
So much of the fairly well organized stuff is taking up space elsewhere:
Like on the high shelves behind me on Ed's side of the bed. I have to stand on the bed to get them down or put them away and needless to say I can't do that when Ed is sleeping or set up in that corner with his laptop on his lap.
Thus even here in my own room, it behooves me to have small portable projects.
There are several I currently have in portable condition and which are also high priority. Check in on tomorrow's post for a list of them and some pictures. I'm hoping that maybe by posting my intentions I will hold myself accountable to get most of them finished in the next six to eight months.
I was planning a book review for this post but didn't finish the book yet and would rather be reading it than trying to come up with something else to post so I'm being lazy. This LOL pic is from the upcoming pages of LOLcats. It hasn't reached the front page yet and I'm rooting for it. I find its message pertinent because that second part is the part that's hard for me...expect others to stare. I see it as something I need to come to terms with if I ever expect to be a published author with an audience of more than fifty. I need to learn not only to accept being noticed but to solicit it and I can't afford to wait until I'm comfortable with the idea. Plus, I'm sure that this issue has contributed to my sabotaging my success over the years.
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I'm keeping the promise I made to myself while helping out at my Mom's from January through June: I'm making time for reading. Lots of time. This weekend I'm fairly gorging. The other promise--to start writing fiction again? Well, that's coming soon, I feel it building pressure. I think the reading is helping. Also all those hours of crocheting I clocked since April. But today I'm reading fiction. I'm reading the novel, Goldengrove by Francine Prose. And I've got less than an hour before I'm called to dinner so what am I doing here?
These are some of the pics I took at the fireworks display at the dirt track yesterday.
We had a calm, stay-at-home July 4th. I started another novel. Ed BBQed pork steaks for the family. After dark we sat in the back yard and then on the front porch watching and listening to the trailer park's fireworks. More listening than watching as the legal stuff is supposed to stay below the level of the roofs.
Update: most of the 'pictures' I took at the track Friday turned out to be videos as I didn't notice the setting had been changed and can not see the LED screen in daylight. So when I aimed and clicked the first time I started the video and the second click stopped it and the third click started it again and so forth. Thus I didn't get most of the pictues I thought I had and got many I didn't expect. I couldn't figure out how to take a single frame out of a video to post as a photo--is it even possible? I tried to upload this 8 second video with Blogger's service but after waiting 2.5 hours for it to finish, I canceled and used my YouTube account instead. Why didn't I think of that first?
Anyway this video is of a group of men rolling a car over onto its wheels after it had flipped onto its roof right in front of us. The driver was fine. So fine he climbed out and ran across the track to get in the face of the driver who he blamed for the flip over. But this driver was the aggressor as he'd been crowding the other car against the wall and that driver had then turned into him. Both drivers were black flagged. >>>>>>>>
I went to the dirt track races with my husband and his folks today. A good part of my motivation to do something that triggers all my anxieties (noise, crowds, sensory overload, social settings) was research for a story idea I'm kicking around. After today I'd like to kick that story out on its asterisk.
The NOISE!!! OMG!!! THE NOISE. It vibrates your bones. Your skull bones. Your rib bones. Your pelvic bones.
And the DIRT. Yeah, they do call it dirt track races. Should have been a clue. And its not like I've never been before. I've been at least twice before. But the last time was over eight years ago and I must have been suppressing my memories. I wore white pants!!! And I took my crochet!!
But I also took notes. I learned some of the vocab and rules and the stories that go with the people behind the wheels. I got interested enough in one car to follow its progress during a fifty lap race. First noticed it because of its colors--neon blue and either orange or pink. Number 37. Its bright number was easy for me to follow across the back side of the track. Then I notice it had passed a car. And soon another car. And another. That seemed unusual to me. I began watching closer. Soon I saw 37 pass what look very much like the same car I first noticed it pass. And it registered on me that must mean the driver had 'lapped' that first car and was at least a full lap ahead of it now.
Among the gritty details of the day that could be fodder for a story: I got clobbered by dirt clods slung by the back wheels of the cars taking turn one just in front of us. Severl hit my head. One hit my collar bone and I caught it just before it went down the front of my shirt. It was of the size and texture of fresh cat poo and I flung it away exclaiming 'Gross!' before I realized what it was. I almost hit the person sitting in front and down the row to our right.
Later, durring the last race, the sensation of vibrating head bones got worse and I could have sworn something was crawling inside my ear. Guess what. There was. I thought at first the sensation was of water being dislodged from this morning's shower and I reached up to tug my ear but the crawly sensation intensified and then there was a sting and more crawling. I poked my finger in my ear and felt this thing wriggling under it. I pinched it and pulled it out. It looked like a moth with folded wings or a termite but Ed said it was a chigger.
I'm a die hard Trekker and thus the images of that thing crawling into Chekov's ear early in The Wrath of Khan are as fresh today as they were the first time I saw them. I thinking I'm in for a nightmare. If I can even get to sleep. The heat at the track was like a furnace with an occasion soft breeze. It was relentless for six hours. By the time we left the track near midnight it was plesently cool. But the trailer house was a muggy oven and I couldn't bear to get near my laptop even if I could have. And I couldn't until I could clean up the 'gift' our Merlin left on the bed right in the spot where I sit at my desk.
I took pictures but don't feel like messing with the camera or image ap right now. I'll add them tomorrow when I do my July 4th post with the pictues of the fireworks they had there tonight. If they turn out that is.
I may also add info from my notes when I add the pictures. I set out to do a quick off the cuff post here. I'm barely conscious as I type.
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It was even hotter today than yesterday. Hot enough my MIL actually turned on the cooler about 2PM and ran it until 8PM. This gave me back my ambition, energy and IQ. I used them to unpack the last of the bags from my return home eleven days ago. The one pictured above and one other nearly the same size that looks more like a soft-sided attache case. They both held my notebooks, manuscripts and writing and reading files.
So the last of this mountain of stuff is stowed away in reasonably accessible places in our room:
There is still a lot of sorting and organizing, rearranging, tweaking, tossing out etc left to do but those tasks will follow as a consequence of using the space and materials.
My primary motivation for tackling this job today was to free up that 'heart' SF bag so I could pack it for tomorrow's excursion to the dirt track and fireworks. It will be a ten hour outing beginning with lunch at a restaurant then over six hours of racing with a finale of fireworks. This will be my first time going since fall of 2001.
I don't particularly enjoy the racing, the crowds, the dirt and noise, the extremes of weather or the cement bleachers. I'm going for the fireworks, to hang with my husband (see, I've only been back 11 days after being away 6 months) and for research for a story I'm thinking about.
I never travel light. Not even for something like this. I'm taking my crochet and the ribbons and beads for finishing the fifteen bookmarks I now have off the hook. But I couldn't take all of the ribbon...
all of the thread...
nor all of the beads...
so I sorted through the beads for a few dozen with potential and cut several dozen lengths of ribbon of 10 or 20 inches making sure I had at least one length off every one of the thirty-odd ribbon spools.
The I pulled the undressed bookmarks out of this pouch and pinned them to a board to block them because edges and corners were curling in. I sprayed a mist of water over them and set them in front of the fan for several hours.
When I took them off the board I put them in the same bag with the lengths of ribbon because it was long enough to house them once they are bedecked without smooshing the ribbons. Then I filled this pouch with sewing and crochet essentials. I packed all the makings of the bookmarks in one pouch about twice the size of this one except for the crochet thread spools which are in a sack. In an identical pouch I put the tank top which I'm planning to embroider its neckline for my sister's birthday (next week!!) with the thread for it. There is also an embrodered bookmark in progress that I put in with it because it has the same colors of thread and the needle threader.
And because I just like variety. Choices.
Also in the bag: a clipboard containing a writing tablet and a tablet of graph paper with a clicker pencil and a uni ball pen; binoculars with earpieces I can wear like glasses; camera and batteries; my white cane; my clip-on magnifying lenses; and four books.
Yes. Four. Books.
Again, its the variety. But I chose judiciously. Really.
One is The Crochet Stitch Bible with pictures and diagrams and how to for new stitches. One is a novel, Goldengrove, by Francine Prose. One is non-fiction, The Crime of Reason by Robert B. Laughlin. The forth is about fiction, How Fiction Works by James Wood. Those last two I had checked out in Longview on my sister's card and then ordered them through my library while I was still in Longview so they would be waiting for me when I got back.
But if I don't get back to it soon, I'm going to have to add the Farley novel, Seven Tears into the Sea too which I thought I would for sure have finished by now let alone before we leave at 1pm tomorrow. But its looking iffy now. But I'll probably be under fifty pages by then so I'd still want the Prose novel to go.
It was in the high 90s here today and this evening clouds moved in raising the muggy factor. I'm not much into having my hands on the hot keyboard of my laptop right now. If I can keep the sweat out of my eyes, I'd like to return to the YA novel I started this afternoon. Seven Tears into the Sea by Terri Farley. It is set on the California coast south of San Francisco and all the descriptions of the sea and fog were helping me feel cooler. It's a fun read, a fantasy set in modern times in which a teen girl is wooed by a selkie. The book was loaned to me by my niece over a year ago. I chose it today as the next novel to read from a selection of short easy reads because I had just finished a novel I spent over a month reading and I wanted something I could maybe read in one day. It may take another as I've just passed the one-third mark.
I didn't get to really get going on it until after dinner this evening though as Ed had today off and we ran some errands. Among them was a short visit to the big Medford branch of our county library system. It was my first visit to the new building that opened over three years ago. I use the Phoenix branch and order my books through the online catalog and I usually have my card tapped out which makes it hard to make a spontaneous visit to the Medford or Ashland branches. Since I just got back from Longview and have used my card only once, the idea was to go to the Medford branch while I still had plenty of room on my card. Then I forgot my card and had to check out on Ed's. Sigh.
Ah well, I doubt I'll be tapping out my card any time soon anyway. I've not got the space in this room for the books anymore. What with the couple dozen loaned by my neice and the three dozen or so review copies and prizes I've won over the last couple years and making room for my printer and the bigger TV Ed's brother gave us last November and Ed needing space for the laptop he got for his B-day/Xmas last November and the two fans and the bushel of crafts stuff I've added...
Speaking of which. I got two more spools of crochet thread today--black and white. I've had several requests for a black bookmark and the white spool that was part of the seed collection that was given to me from Ed's Grandma's effects two years ago is running low. We went to two craft stores today and last week to Wal-Mart and I am frustrated at the paucity of choice in the crochet thread everywhere I've looked. I would like to collect the whole pallet of color and several sizes of thread. I would also like to get more thread on smaller more portable spools like the several I found in Grandma's sewing basket which are running out fast.
I guess I need to figure out a way to measure how much thread one bookmark needs and wind it off the big spools onto smaller ones or cards to make the projects pocket portable. And as for the selection--there's the interwebs I guess. But I'm a hands-on kind of shopper. Plus the prices online are pretty much take it or leave it and you can't use the local craft store's 20% off coupons and there's the shipping costs to factor in.
