Cty Mouse Country Mouse

I live my life in two worlds: a big beautiful thriving city alive with creativity and art and possibility and a small bookish college country town with history deep enough to thrill any archaeologist.



Both of these worlds inspire a possessive love in me - a love of place, and I also love moving freely between them. Last week I spent time with a friend of mine at the local Shaker Community, now an historical site but within my lifetime a dwelling place for the remaining community of Shakers - not preserved, but actual. I noticed that something had been lost in this change from real life to preserved life, but it was hard to put my finger on it. It was something about the translation and the assumptions made. Something about the difference between Eldress Bertha saying "Oh yes, I've made raspberry jelly just the way your Great Aunt did every year!" and a note over a jelly cupboard that reads "Sister's Kitchen Stores".


(Eldress Bertha at 90 yrs in 1987; she died in 1990)

The day we visited was Lavender Day and several people had gathered to enjoy the sun and the flowers in this beautiful setting.





We didn't take a formal tour, having done that several times in the past, but wandered on our own. Dwelling houses were open and re-enactors shared the details of that particular house while dressed in Shaker garb.



We visited the Sister's Shop, the home of Henry Clay Binn who was the village beekeeper, map maker, Elder, and school teacher, and the Infirmary.





This volunteer was a 1923 doctor who definitely stayed in character throughout the whole time. The infirmary included his office with all its medical stores such as Extract of Ginger, Alum, and other botanicals in tall glass jars as well as the beginnings of chemical medicines. In his office was a dental chair with the implements common to the first quarter of the last century. The next room had surgical equipment - a regular iron bed, three metal bowls on a stand, and a wooden table for the surgery equipment, as well as a fireplace. He explained that surgery was performed in the patient's room, so they didn't have to be moved afterward, and they recovered in the same room. There were two surgery/bedrooms downstairs, the office, and a large kitchen and pantry. Presumably the doctor lived upstairs.

Next, we visit the house labeled the "Sisters' Shop". In this building, all the needlework items that the Shakers sold and used themselves were created.



This was the place that was most interesting to me! Each room was set up as a workroom for knitting, sewing, weaving, spinning, and basket-making. The Sisters even made doll clothes! In one airy, light room, two octagonal tables were placed, each with two or three ladder-back chairs around it. On the tables were sewing and mending baskets and hanging from the walls, wool capes that had been mended. A cabinet held a vast quantity of wire double-point needles and bone crochet hooks. In one corner near the cast iron woodstove heater, a small floor-standing skein winder stood near a small stool - perhaps a child's job to wind the spun wool into skeins?



In the next room a long shelf the length of the wall was used for cutting cloth. Chairs without arms and with very short backs were placed near the large spinning wheel, the loom, and the old cast iron sewing machine. The woman at this house explained that these chairs were especially designed for movement back and forth in the chair when doing these three activities and no arms meant that you didn't bump your elbows! I think it must have been very hard on the back though!

We also visited the Henry Binn's house. It would be unusual for him to have a whole house to himself, but it's more likely that he lived with other Brothers, and he was so interesting historically, that the historical society just used this building to highlight him. I did ask the man who was presenting this building (who was very enthusiastic and dresses like an early 18th century Shaker brother, suspenders and all) about one of the displays and he said that is was indeed Henry Binn's own bedroom with furniture he had made, all except the bed (which was about 5 feet long). Henry Binn was an interesting character. He must have had a brain too big for his circumstances because he was always inventing and always learning something new. He had many many professions within the Shaker community. He wasn't just the Beekeeper, he invented a new type of bee skype that circulated air to cool the honey, thereby freeing up the worker bees who were formerly kept busy fanning their wings all day every day to cool the honey comb, to go out and gather more pollen to make more honey! His bees were the most productive in New England! He taught botany and other subjects at the school, and was a map maker, creating beautiful wall-size maps drawn, illustrated, and water-coloured by himself. They are works of art...



After all this history, we were ready for lunch! In the past, the restaurant was characterized by its delicious presentation of real seasonal Shaker recipes using produce from the gardens but a new chef has renamed it and made it more modern, though the food was still decorated with edible flowers.





In the shop, lavender cookies were for sale in honor of Lavender Day. The recipe wasn't available, but here is Eldress Bertha's own recipe for Lemon Verbena Cookies:

Lemon Verbena Cookies

Sift together in a bowl
2 cups and 2 Tbs flour
1 cup sugar
1 tbs soda
¼ tsp salt
Add
¾ cup milk
1 tsp lemon juice
1/3 cup cooking oil
1 egg beaten
2 tbs lemon verbena – pulverized

Bake at 325 for 8 mins

Our next adventure was to visit the extensive gardens in the back.





The gardens are set in between the community buildings and the upper pond which is a popular home for beavers and swans.



We sat in green Adirondack chairs for a while and just relaxed in this peaceful setting until several people saw us and thought this was a great idea, so a crowd gathered. Then we moved on to tour the gardens. This used to be a produce and herb garden with a few flowers that had culinary or medical use, but this day it was mainly ornamental.





In one of the workrooms, stations were set up for visitors to make bouquets using the language of flowers. That was a very popular activity!



From the gardens you can see the whole village against the sky:





On the way out, we admired the farm stand garden and my friend bought some lavender plants...





Of course, we visited the gift shop too. But I can't comment on that (ahem) because I bought too many things for future gifts!

On Thieves, Thievery, and Letting Go

A couple of weeks ago, as you've read below, I went on a trip to New York City. I told you about the city and about the schools, and about the yarn, but I didn't tell you about... the not so happy times...

I stayed at the Bentley, a small but tall place just across the highway from the water...



The day before we left to return home, I got food poisoning in a most dramatic way. I was so ill that my co-workers were checking on me every hour to see if it was time for me to go to the Emergency Room. I couldn't walk due to the vertigo and nausea - not that you need the details but I want to give a picture of how very unable I was to tend to anything during those two days.

On the second day of sickness when it was time to leave, a coworker came to my room and helped me pack up by tossing my things into my suitcase. I was so grateful. I wasn't able to even move my head to look around the room. Two coworkers walked me to the car to keep me upright.

Once we were about 100 miles out of town, I realized that I didn't have my raincoat. My raincoat, that had - in the pockets - my handknitted cashmere Veyla gloves - the ones with the antique jet and silver buttons...



The buttons were given to me by a dear elderly friend at work when she retired. They had been her grandmother's. I made the gloves especially to showcase the buttons and I wore them all the time. The yarn was from Mackintosh Yarns - a beautiful cashmere in a deep oceany teal and black...

Of course my first step was to call the Bentley as soon as I was able. Yes, they had my coat and yes they had secured it in the housekeeping lost-and-found area. Yes they would mail it to me - for $75(!!). I chose an alternative solution and a friend of mine stopped by the hotel to pick it up and bring it here, where she was visiting her parents.

Guess what? You guessed it! The coat was there, but the pockets were empty. No gloves. Furious is too mild a word for my mood when my friend told me about this.

I am heartbroken. My bf snickered when I told him how upset I was. He doesn't understand that things like this are irreplaceable. Sure, I can make another pair of gloves. But I can never make that pair of gloves, nor an I ever find that particular hand-dyed yarn in that particular colour, nor will I ever have those very precious jet mourning buttons from my friend's grandmother - ever again.

But he did his best to console me tonight:



And my friend did her best to get the hotel to actively try to retrieve these gloves from the only person who might have had access to them on their trip from my room to the housekeeping locker, but to no avail. They couldn't be bothered to even inquire of the staff involved.

I wanted to rage. I wanted to lodge a police report or call the press or both. I wanted that manager to realize that these gloves had involved a considerable amount my heart and soul, not to mention time, expense, and precious antique mementos. But I had to let go.

The fact is, that someone at the Bentley has stolen something from someone else. They will carry that dark cloud every time they wear those gloves, or when they sell those gloves on eBay, or when they give them as a gift that is not theirs to give. It is actually their loss. Because they will never be same, though they may not realize it at first. Their heart will be a little darker, their prospects a little less bright, and their hopes and dreams a little further away from being realized.

And me.... I need to learn to let the world relieve me of some of the beautiful things I carry with me. If I open my fingers, they can drift away to a new owner. They can be a gift, not a theft.

As Valerie said to Miracle Max in The Princess Bride,
Let them steal what they want; what do we have worth fighting over?

Sophia knits Sophia

Once again, I've used the wonderful template that is the Baby Sophisticate sweater to create something unique. Sophia's Sweater:



My friend has had a new baby girl, and her name is Sophia. I was so inspired to knit for her! And it was so much fun to make something a bit girly.



I used Debbie Bliss Rialto (2 skeins) and my own fishy chart. The first picture is most accurate for colour - it's almost a pond scum green with a rose contrast yarn and real pockets of course.



Please remember that the Baby Sophisticate pattern runs very small, so always judge your size by the chest measurement - under the arms - and this will tell you how much to increase before putting the arm stitches on holders. A good standard chart for baby sizes is here:



This is from the BBC Homepage, England. These are body measures, and don't include ease, so I recommend adding an inch or even two (I like to be generous with baby sweaters so that they can be used for a long time) to the chest measures.

I have to say, I really enjoy knitting baby sweaters. Who wouldn't? They are fast and usually simply put together, and can be customized in infinite variety.

Sophia goes to New York City

This week a few colleagues and I traveled to New York City for several days. First, let me say that it is a really long car drive. Bring snacks. But second, there is a spectacular diner on exit 10 called the Blue Colony Diner. They make really, really good chicken soup and potato pancakes. Seriously.

But, back to the trip... We stayed in a tiny hotel with a fancy-schmancy vibe:



pretty orchids!



My room was so tiny! But it had a huge bed, a comfy lounge chair perfect for knitting, and a pretty water view out of the picture window:







My Yarnphone Ap was taunting me mightily because there are so, so many wonderful yarn stores in NYC and there were no breaks built into our days. I wanted so badly to visit or at least see both Habu Textiles and PurlSoho but it was not to be. I kept looking for breaks in the program that would let me slip away - at least to the two yarn stores within walking distance of my hotel...

Our work involved, in part, visiting NYC schools. New York is unique in that the schools, particularly the high schools, are sometimes in buildings that also house other schools and businesses. I saw one building that housed 5 different and distinct schools and one that was in a big building that also housed 2 businesses not connected tot he school, a caterer and a florist.

One of the schools was in what appeared to be an old vocational school with fabulous hand-painted murals from the WPA era:



but also seemed in parts to have been a religious building because of the beautiful stained glass:



During the lunch break we got a bit of a walk around the neighbourhood and had lunch at such a cute French restaurant that also had original artwork on the walls:



I had crepes with goat cheese, of course, and everyone else had quiche. When I cut into my buttery crepe, I discovered that there was a soft fried egg and potatoes inside! It was lovely, like a Top Chef quick-fire.

As we walked back to our meeting, we passed this lovely bakery, The Three Tarts, and I was enchanted! I had to pick up a little something for my Camp Loopy swap partner - I had to! How could I resist?





Then I jumped into a taxi and headed out to Brooklyn for an afternoon of work. I have to say that when I got back to the hotel in the afternoon, in 92 degree F weather, I was exhausted and had a stiff neck and a headache. But with just two hours before the start of the evening meeting, this was my only opportunity to find those two yarn stores that the Yarnphone Ap told me were nearby. I changed my shoes and started walking.

I'm so glad I did this, because New York is amazing!



This is the city Monorail, wafting high over the ground with its little red cars...



The first yarn store I encountered was closed - out of business, definitely, since I could see through the windows that the electrics were coming out of the walls. It's a hard time, economically, for businesses considered a luxury item... or is it? The next store I found seemed to belie this, because String Yarns on 65th was pure luxury!



The shop, two airy rooms on the second story of a narrow townhouse apartment building, was flanked on one end by a picture window that overlooked a wide, shady, pleasant neighbourhood near 5th Avenue.



There was a woman knitting at the table in the back, and a woman looking though patterns and chatting with the owners at the table by the window. They were all very friendly and casual and I felt completely at ease. As usual, I started at one end and walked around clockwise, and looked at every single item (this is why my bf doesn't shop with me). String has it's own colour lines - familiar yarn companies that dye exclusive colours just for String - and I was looking for these, and for knitting accessories that would not be found elsewhere. Every skein in String is either Cashmere or Silk or some other luxury combination. Very Posh.



Maybe for this reason, nothing was priced - you had to ask the price for everything you looked at, which required a lot of personal attention. Luckily with a place this small, attention was no problem and the women were extremely nice - the perfect combination of attentive and leaving you alone to browse. And they had buttons! really, really cute and really, really beautiful buttons. It was so lovely. Resistance was futile:



Two silk and one cashmere:



The rest of the trip was totally work oriented, so it was very satisfying to have had this small opportunity to slip away for two precious hours to explore. And the walk was therapeutic and made me wish for a pretty little New York apartment:

Unraveling is unraveling

Sorry no blog post this weekend - my car was vandalized and I've spent all my free time dealing with police and insurance and car repair places. I do have things to show you, so hopefully I'll be back on track soon!

Could be worse. Could be raining....

Sherlock investigates

"Welcome to my house!" says Sherlock, "Come on in!" Well, he doesn't actually say that. In fact, Sherlock doesn't like visitors. He would rather be left to his own devices to explore the bathtub...



and play in the doll furniture...



Watson continues to be shy and to hide amongst the stuffed animals. When he's sleeping in a pile with the toy lions, he's almost indistinguishable. It's pretty hilarious. But he has been coming out more and more when I get out the dinner. So I have hope that my feral kitties will eventually be tame.

I'm on a domestic streak right now and along with painting the upstairs rooms, I'm making blankets. One you've seen - the Miss Marple's Shawl from Piecework magazine - and it's almost finished, though I had to order a 3rd skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Marine Silk. This might make it the most expensive item I've ever knit.

But the second....you saw the beginning of in my last post: The Socks That Rock Granny Square quilt:



It really is a song of praise to Blue Moon's Socks That Rock. From bottom to top, left to right, the colours are:

Carbon Dating
Vintage
Heathered
Cosy, Fierce, Scummy Girl
Seal Rock

Kalish
Space Dust
County Clare
River Rocked
Bejewelled

Taos
Kelped
Nyame
Dragon Dance
Love in Idleness

Bella Coola
Dilly Dilly
On Blueberry Hill
Chawton Cottage

Since then, I've added more. A couple of favorites...Kelped


and Cosy, Fierce Scummy Girl


I also love River Rocked and would like to do a whole baby quilt just with that. I guess I'm having a love affair with Blue Moon yarns. Some people would say that yarns can't reciprocate the love, but I'm here to tell you you're wrong. So, so wrong.