Adventure

Another morning exhausted, but at least this time I have an adventure to blame instead of drama or cleaning. We left about 7 yesterday morning and didn't get home until after 7 in the evening. We took a train and then bus to the California State Capitol building in Sacramento. We visited both it and the the California Museum that is a couple of blocks from there. We even got to have a talk with an Assemblyman where I kept my mouth as shut as possible because it was a nice thing for all the kids, not my kids particularly, but the other ones. Then it was a stroll through the mall back to the train station where we took the train all the way home.

My husband left these photos on my desktop this morning...he must have realized that I would want to steal them for the blog. This first one is me and girls in front of the Capitol building in the sun, the only place it was warm. The wind was something else, but otherwise it was a beautiful day. And because apparently no matter where I go, I will run into something tatted we have a picture of a dress from the Suffrage display in the Notable Californian Women section of the museum. Yep, there's a nice tatted collar there and yes, I recognize most of the elements of it from my stash of vintage pattern books.

Since I was out of town all day, I of course had more messages over at etsy than usual and trying to answer them while touring a building was a bit awkward. So today I have a few messages to catch up with and then I have a couple of small pieces that sold during the day that will need to get made. I also need to get back to the post earrings. I was shamed on facebook for the design I think, since they are so simple and really not my style, so I might try to come up with another design that fits the dimensions, but is more me. I was also informed that even surgical steel is not allergy proof, so I did a little more research and ordered up some titanium posts as well which are absolutely nickle free. Of course at the end of this experiment I will have far more posts than I will likely ever use. I'm also feeling pretty lucky to have no real metal sensitivities myself. So here's to a nice, quiet, productive day.

Normality Achieved

Ah, I'm home. Thanks for putting up with my Mac-centric posting the last few days. We had a fine time in the city and I'm definitely tired. I could regale you with many short stories of the events of the last two days that have nothing to do with tatting or craft at all, but luckily I do have one crafty story from my trip to share.

We spent Monday doing a little tourist shopping at Pier 39. After shopping for a bit in the nearly deserted due to rain area, we stopped in at the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. As soon as we were seated my Mother-in-law busted out with her knitting. She is always working on dishcloths wherever she goes on a set of circular needles she can easily tuck away. When our server came back and saw the knitting, she had to ask a few questions. You see, she had received a 'learn to knit' kit for Christmas and had quickly become addicted. It was funny to hear the learning stories and we answered a few questions about making things like hats and leg warmers. I guess you never know when or where you will run into a new knitter these days.

The event got me thinking about my early knitting stories. I can't honestly remember how young I was when I first learned to knit, but it was in high school that I went from fiber curious to addict. I had a set of circular needles and I was going to make a blanket. I scrounged the house looking for every scrap of acrylic yarn I could find left over from Girl Scout crafts or my mothers crochet. I don't know how many stitches I casted on and it was quite some time before I realized exactly how wide this disaster of a striped blanket would be. It became a huge king sized blanket striped in clashing colors. I worked on it so long that I wore out almost all the color on one side of the needles. I still have the thing complete with sloppy repairs of dog made holes. Even more amusing is that I had initially taught myself the pearl stitch wrong and the entire thing is made with a twisted stockinette stitch. I haven't knitted in a while having shifted to tatting a few years ago, but it is still dear in my heart and a house full of scarves, blankets, teddy bears, hats and even a few sweaters and tank tops speaks to a hidden addiction.

I did also finish my tatted throat corset that I spoke of before I left. I decided to try tatting in the car on the way up and back and apparently that was just enough time to get most of the piece done. I came home to a couple of mask orders so it's on to them next. I guess we are really back normality now.