purlsandmurmers

Leaving on a Jet Plane

My sister-in-law passed away very early this morning following a difficult battle with cancer.  I am flying out tomorrow and will probably be away the rest of the week.

Although I had started the day with plans to sew a skirt, that quickly got put aside.  The good news is needing something decent to throw in my suitcase, I finally hemmed my jeans.  Now, although I have three shades of tan "jeans" topstitching thread, none of them are the same shade used in either pair of jeans I had to hem.   Good is the enemy of perfect, or so they say.

"twofer" vegetables

I do love my vegetables.  And although I do truly miss my vegetable garden, which I just didn't manage to get started this year, I am grateful that there are still farms and farmer's markets in my area which provide a wonderful assortment of good, fresh things to eat.

I am particularly fond of green leafy vegetables, have been for quite a while, and I am especially thrilled with vegetables where I get two vegetables in one plant.    Beets are a thrill as I love the beets themselves and I also love the greens.  When I have a garden I have been known to plant the rows of beets a little heavily so that I have more baby greens to thin out and eat before the beets themselves can grow.

Turnips and carrots fall into the same "twofer" category.  These are small japanese turnips which are wonderful raw in salads and are sweet when steamed.  I love the turnip greens even more than the turnips though, especially when sauteed with a little olive oil, garlic, chopped black olives and a bit of lemon.

Carrots are also a multiple use vegetable.  Of course we all eat the carrots.  But did you know the greens are edible too?  My favorite farm stand doesn't remove the greens from the carrots even though they recognize that most people don't eat them, and I've been known to offer to take unwanted greens off fellow customer's hands when the farm stand won't.  I now carry a pocket knife with me when I go to the farmer's market.  In the winter my gourmet/farm market keeps a box on the floor where people may discard the greenery from the carrots, and they don't object if I gather up a bag full of greens.

Last night we roasted these carrots.  I simply peeled them and tossed them with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and tossed them in a 350 degree oven until the were soft, a little wrinkly and caramelized; they were sweet and good.  Later in the week I will make soup with the greens.

Garment district shopping 1 -- Metro Textiles

I promised to reveal the fruits of my shopping trip to NYC.   

The fabrics arrived from Metro Textile on Wednesday last week, a week ago today, and I just now got a chance to really look at them beyond a cursory glance.  For the most part these are basic fabrics that I intend to be making up fairly soon.

This first fabric is a woven, a lovely deep gray wool, which will become a pair of pants, once I work out the details of refitting my TNT pants pattern that is.  The shiny fabric underneath it is bemberg lining, a lovely weight of bemberg lining which seemed very reasonable at $5.00 a yard, reasonable enough that I bought a few yards even though I don't always line pants.

The remainder of my purchases from Kashi were knits.  A charcoal grey wool double knit is on the left.  It looks beautiful with the wool above which means it might make a lovely sweater set, or perhaps I will use it for a dress.  I am sorely feeling the need for dresses about now, so we will see what it becomes.

The blue and black is also a wool double knit.  It is a blue/black marl on one side with black on the other side.  You can see both the blue and black yarns on the blue side.  I don't quite know what I am doing with this one yet either, but I am sure the right pattern will materialize.

This lovely deep plum knit is another wool, this one much lighter in weight, almost sheer, but not quite, with more of a hint of translucence than transparence.   This will be some kind of top.  

Last but by no means least is this gorgeous knit.  This was my "inspiration" purchase at Kashi's.  The other pieces were all lovely functional basics that I knew I could use.  This piece was purchased just because it is beautiful.  It will be a dress.  Did I say I am yearning for dresses?  Hopefully this will be a dress that makes my heart sing.

When parents are away the kitten will play

Sometimes I just feel really stupid.  

Three weeks ago Moisés started hunting yarn, and I moved most of the yarn out of my sewing/yarn room and into the fabric closet.  It is still piled up there and I can hardly get into that closet from the monumental mess.  I thought it was safe as that closet has folding doors which are fairly tight and don't open easily.  At that point Moisés couldn't open those doors, but within about a week and a half he had learned how to worm his body between the doors and shove them open by brute force.  Then the yarn was his.

I am now closing the door to the library, which contains the yarn closet, fully intending to reorganize as soon as I finish the outdoor fall maintenance on the house and the various repairs that have been necessitated by a few years of neglect on my part while G was ill, and on his part while he was gradually becoming more confused but trying to maintain the illusion that it wasn't happening.

I knew Moisés was learning fast and was also determined, but I allowed myself to suppress this information.

Until Sunday night that it is.  

Sunday evening we came home from our concert and, as usual there were three cats at the door ready to greet us.  But wait.  One cat had something soft and fuzzy and maroon colored in his mouth.  My immediate thought was "I know I closed the library door", and yes it was closed.  Then I grabbed the yarn.  Kidsilk Haze, as tempting to cats as to knitters.  I knew it came from the sewing room.  

As I walked through the house I was amazed at what I saw.  There was a giant cobweb of yarn spun around all the furniture, the railings on the stairs and the freestanding chimney in the living room, up and down, over and under, all around there was yarn.  Pink yarn, blue yarn, linen yarn, silk yarn, wool. Oh my. The sewing room was even worse.  

Moises had to be put away in a yarn-free room overnight while I started the slow process of rewinding.  By late Monday morning I had the yarn all back together and I decided to put it back in the cubbies temporarily as I wanted to see how Moisés had managed to get at it.  The yarn cubbies were 4 and 5 1/2 feet off the floor respectively and he is not a jumper.   I let him in and it was only  a short while before the lure of yarn proved too strong to ignore.  I caught him in the act.

Moisés had learned to climb the wall of cubbies.  The yarn will have to be moved of course.  In the meantime I am keeping the door to the fiber haven firmly closed.  But this will not work for long.  Already the little devil is reaching up to the doorknob and trying to turn it.  He has not yet been successful, but I can no longer delude myself into thinking this is anything more than a short term (very short term) solution.

Monday Music

Sunday was a beautiful crisp fall day.  It was the perfect day for another concert in the Berkshires.  Unfortunately the concert did not live up to the standards Mother Nature provided.

It all started well.  The Juilliard has a new first Violinist, Nick Eanet who was apparently making his debut with the quartet.  I think there are still a few bugs to be worked out in this newly evolving ensemble.

The first work, Schubert's Quartet in A Minor, Op 29, the "Rosamunde" was a disappointment.  G had taken his hearing aides out for some reason and was upset that he couldn't hear the music.  I told him it was a blessing.  Now Schubert is not something I usually associate with the Juilliard's spare muscular style, but I was willing to give them a chance,  and Eanet's playing was sweet and melodic.  But the Schubert was flat and boring and a little too spare, while the sentiment was almost sickly sweet and filled with schmaltz, as if we had the Juilliard Quartet auditioning for Lawrence Welk.

But that wasn't even the worst of it.  There was some kind of shifting scraping, wheezing echo that occurred only during play.  I couldn't identify it.  It sounded like a cross between a scrape and the sound of wind in a tunnel.  I looked around me.  I looked at the musicians.  I quickly decided that it was coming from the first violin but I couldn't figure out why or what it was.  I couldn't imagine if something was wrong with the violin.  It was distracting from the music in the extreme, and it was quite audible over the music.  I was a good ways back in the small concert hall, in the 13th row.

Between the first and second pieces, my fellow audience members in the rows around me were wondering what it was, but none of us could quite figure it out.  I was determined to leave at intermission, after the Bartok.  But I didn't.  The Bartok was much to excellent, dry and astringent, thrilling in parts, with that devastating sense of emptiness that is such a shocking ending for the 2nd Quartet in A Minor, Op 17.  Yes there was that same wheezing, foghorn like sound, but it was less frequent.  And the music was just too good.

I stayed and listened to the Beethoven Quartet in F Major, Op 135, which is one of my favorites.  I should have left. During intermission the director of the program had told G that he thought the sound was heavy breathing on the part of the cellist.  This thought held my attention for a while (the playing did not always manage that).  I quickly determined that it couldn't be the cellist though.  It had to be the first violin, but I still couldn't determine what was making the noise.  The Beethoven was not bad, parts of it were wonderful, parts were only acceptable.  The noise was a distraction, and not only to me.

The group played an encore, a Mendelssohn scherzo, which is where I figured it out.  It was the first violinist, not the violin and he was breathing heavily while he played, rasping and almost sighing a couple of times.  There was an audible emotive sigh at one point in the Mendelssohn that killed the whole thing for me.  

The concert would have been much better had I not been so annoyed, and I was very annoyed.  I don't know if Mr. Eanet is an emotive breather during performance or if he just had a cold.  If it is the former I hope he will learn to control it.  The changing dynamic in a group when one member leaves is always difficult and I think that Eanet shows great promise.  I would be interested in hearing the group again, perhaps after a few more performances, perhaps this was just a rough start.

Organized and Ready To Go

I love purses.

Being the kind of person who likes to coordinate my accessories with my outfits, including jewelry, it is probably not surprising that I like to change purses as well.  For a while, in my 40's I was getting all minimalist and trying to reduce the number of things I carried in my purse to the lightest load possible.  I weeded out credit cards, eliminated "unnecessary" items and thought I had a pretty workable system.  

Still things accumulated.  I added the cell phone.  I added a Palm.  I added an iPod.  I got an ITouch which allowed me to combine my Palm and iPod into one (smaller) unit.  But I started having to carry more other stuff in my bag, stuff for G, stuff for me in case I had an allergic reaction, an impossible number of pieces of paper.  Nothing was easy in my purse anymore.    

I still managed to change purses pretty frequently, but the odds that I would forget something grew stronger.  

Last week I solved all my problems; at least I solved all my purse problems.  I bought a Purse Protector from my friend Lyn.  Now I knew that Lyn had developed this purse organizer to solve her own need for keeping things together and changing purses so when I found out that they were finally available for sale I had to buy one, well actually two, as I bought one for my mom as well.

Now everything is organized.  It can be opened up and made longer and flatter for those long flat purses I have.  It can be separated for smaller purses.  Best of all is that I figured out that I can leave my ipod and my cell phone in the purse protector and plug them in for charging/syncing without ever taking them out of the purse protector.  I just plop the whole thing on the side of my desk, which happens to be right next to the purse-closet, plug them in, and the next morning I just grab the whole thing and pop it in my purse.  I never leave without my cell phone anymore.  I never get to a doctor's office and realize that I left my iTouch at home and with it my list of G's medications or my calendar.  

When I went into NYC last week, I had everything easily at my fingertips, right where I needed it. No more fumbling at the newsstand at Grand Central because my wallet has somehow sunk to the bottom of my bag, no more riffling through my pockets trying to remember where I put my metrocard.  Everything fits, everything is where it is supposed to be, I can just grab it and go without having to think about it, and somedays having one less thing to have to think about is very very good.

Music and a Movie

Sunday's concert at South Mountain was absolutely fabulous.  My mind still swirls in recollection of bits and pieces, little bits of melody, soaring emotion.  

We heard a trio consisting of Wu Han on the Piano, David Finckel, also of the Emerson Quartet, on cello, and Philip Setzer playing the violin.   I have, of course heard Finckel and Setzer playing with the Emerson, and I heard Wu Han as a soloist, but I had not heard Han and Finckel play together, nor had I heard this trio.  I was intrigued.

The concert was all Schubert; the Piano trio in B flat Major and the Piano Trio in E flat Major.  Have I already said it was marvelous?  It was indeed.  The music was lush and powerful and filled with emotion.  There was an almost visceral quality to the music, subtle perhaps in the B-flat trio which was filled with lush playful melodies.  That visceral quality was immediately apparent in E-flat trio which  drags you into hell and back; it was in turns brooding, serene, volcanic, angry, and yet touched by solace and perhaps redemption.

Watching and listening to musicians perform is always fascinating.  The opportunity to hear musicians whom I usually associate with one group and sound performing outside those boundaries is enlightening.  Of course playing as a soloist and a member of an ensemble are tremendously different things; in a group the dynamic of the group play a major role in the music.  

This group is totally different than the Emerson; the dynamic is different.  The playing is still brilliant, but the musicians seem to be having far more fun, and there is considerable emotional depth to the music.  Finckel, whose face is always animated during performance, seems more animated.  Han is a dynamo; powerful when power is needed, and yet lilting and precise as well.  There is a definite dynamic between Han and Finckel, not surprising I suppose since they are married.  They create gorgeous music together.  The dialog between Setzer and Finkel seemed magical, the music dancing, a few conspiratorial raised eyebrows, Setzer's feet dancing in their slow smooth slide beneath his chair.  I always love watching Setzer's feet during play.  Since the Emerson stands during performance, I miss watching his feet.  This seemed like a special treat.  He moves them around, as I do when I sit.  But I fidget because I have a bad back.  I don't know that Phillip Setzer has a bad back, but he moves his feet eloquently with the music, and there is an occasional little quiver with the beat or a trill.  Sometimes he raises his eyebrows back at David Finckel.  The music soars.  Heady stuff.

I just found out there is a recording of these concerts.  The photo of the album cover is from Finckel and Wu Han's website, from which I will be ordering the recording post-haste. 

September Issue, which I saw on Friday,  was a disappointment.  It was one of the most boring movies I have ever seen.  I was in NYC with friends, we talked about going to see the Toledo Exhibit, but unsurprisingly, finding a cab in the rain in NYC is an impossible task and we opted to see the movie instead.  Read Carolyn's review, I completely agree and she said it better than I ever could.  

Grace Coddington made the movie.  And Anna Wintour may be brilliant and powerful but my initial impression of her was that she had absolutely no affect.  I was wrong.  There was one scene, with her daughter, were a little glimmer of something came through, and of curse the famous pursed lips.  But really these things just had me feeling very sorry for her, strange as that may sound.

In a nice bit of serendipity, I happened to watch part of "The Devil Wears Prada!" on Saturday, while I was waiting for a match to begin at the US Open tennis tournament.  Meryl Streep nailed the Anna Wintour role except that mean as Meryl was in that movie, she couldn't reproduce the utter blankness of AW's face.  There was always just a little too much humor and irony and intelligence peeking out.  

Foot-Weary

I was in NYC yesterday meeting friends in the garment district.  It was a fabulous day filled with laughter, good food, and yes, some retail therapy as well.  I shipped my purchases home, and I will share as soon as the packages arrive.  Life is too short to spend a day dragging heavy bags of fabric around.

Especially when your feet hurt.

I thought I was being really practical.  It was raining so I wanted to wear some water-resistant or rain protective shoes.  I have several choices, but I chose the pair with the narrow, 2 inch, kitten heel.  This has long been one of my favorite pairs of rain boots, and it was, in fact the same pair that I wore last time I was in NYC walking around all day.

It was only when we decided to go to a movie to get out of the rain and rest, that I realized that "last time" was two years ago, and that I had been on my feet, on the pavement, and on hard floors, for 7 hours, with a brief, half-hour, lunch break in between.    Obviously my 49 year old feet, were more adept at this than my 51 year old feet seem to be.  

Although the movie did provide ample rest for me to be able to walk to dinner, and from dinner to the subway and my train home, my feet are protesting mightily today, and I have had to curtail my workout substantially in order to give same feet a rest.

I am not ready to give up heels, and given that I do not live a life where I am on my feet all day, I am not convinced that it is necessary.  But I do recognize that I need to find some comfortable walking shoes with thick soles and enough support to keep me comfortable for those days on my feet.  I don't believe it was the heel that was a problem here, in fact I know a 1 1/2" to 2" heel is often more comfortable on my back if I am standing around a great deal, which was the case yesterday.  But a narrow 2 inch heel on a shoe with a very thin sole, is not a good idea.  Thick cushioning soles, platforms or a wedge, and some support are increasingly more necessary.

I am coming to  realize that, although I do wear heels regularly, the structure and support of that heel is much more critical than it was when I was in my thirties or even forties. Some heels are comfortable for a day of getting in and out of a car and even walking a few blocks or the aisles of a grocery store or mall, and other shoes are painful after a few hours of being out and about.   It is time to put some more thought into the shoes I wear more, even as this means giving up a few cherished "beliefs" about what looks good.  After all our aesthetics are deeply shaped by what we see around us.

For all the 4 and 5 inch heels circulating in the market place, and all the young women who post their shoes on their blogs, or whom I see striving through town (or Grand Central Station) on narrow 4 inche heels,   I also see large numbers of attractive young women who chose and wear shoes that are stylish and comfortable without being treacherous.  Oh even they may wear a higher heel for a party but not everyday.    I should take a lesson from this.  

I need shoes for long days on my feet but these are rare.  Primarily but for the most part I need shoes I am comfortable in for a 4 to 6 hour stretch of driving walking, lifting, turning, standing, and doing whatever needs to be done.  Sometimes that may be a heel, sometimes it may not.    Shoes are irrelevant when I am home as I am mostly barefoot and have been since I was old enough to have my own place, a place where no one could make me wear shoes.  No amount of warnings about the dangers of running barefoot can dissuade me from the pleasure of slipping my shoes off when I walk through the door and running through the house with bare toes.

Bare feet are strong feet.  I think strong women need to be able to stand and walk with their feet firmly planted on the ground, even if their heads may be in the clouds. 

What I Wore

Now that I have a place in the sewing room that I can take pictures, I have discovered that educational value of taking pictures of what I am wearing.  Having the camera always in the same place, on a tripod with a self timer, with the same background and approximately the same light, give or take, has been extremely helpful in determining what I actually look like, what looks good or doesn't, and where I want to go with my wardrobe.   I feel like I am very much in the process of finding my way.

Here are some of my wardrobe choices over the last week.  I've lost a little more weight in the waist and hips, more in the waist than the hips, but I'm still middle aged and a little on the pudgy side:  5'9, size 12, trying to figure out what I want to wear now.

Boot cut jeans, now a little too big and which will soon need replaced.

Brilla Boatneck Sweater.  I have been uncomfortable wearing this but I realize that my discomfort was because it hugs the shape, which I now realize might not be so bad.  The color is good.  I originally wore it with rather loose pants, and these jeans are too loose as well.  It needs to be worn with something properly fitted.

Ceramic necklace given to me by step-daughter 15 years ago.   Black sandals.

Red Engine Boyfriend Jeans.  Red Banana Republic Tee.  Donna Karan Sandals.  I changed the jewelry immediately after I saw the photographs.  

Note for the future:  crew necklines are not my friend.

I like the jeans worn at this length on me.  It might not be on-trend, but it is definitely "my look".

Same jeans, rolled up one turn higher to show the ankle.  This length is much more difficult for my proportions. This look is so-so.  It doesn't look bad, but it looks like I am trying too hard, at least to me.

I was about to donate the top to Salvation Army and was giving it one last try-on when G thought I should wear it.  As I said it is not bad, but I think it looks too young and frou-frou for me.  I think what bothers me is the combination of the gathers with the puffy cap sleeve.   The neckline is obviously more flattering than the crew neck. Top from Anthropologie.

Gladiator sandals from Sam Edelman.

Cord and glass necklace.  

Silver mesh bangles and horn bangle from Sundance.

This does show me that there is hope for turned up jeans, which I like in principle, if I get the pieces and proportions right.

Green sweater I knitted years ago.  I really knitted my sweaters too large back then as I was probably a size 8 when I knitted this and it is not tight now.  I used to love this sweater.  Perhaps it was more flattering then. Now it is the wrong length and too boxy.  The floppy sleeves and cowl don't help.

Grey tropical wool pants from Banana Republic.

Heavy silver chain inherited from my mother in law.  Pendant purchased in Arizona.

The same dark jeans as in the first picture.  The top was made a few years ago using Hot Patterns Weekender Renaissance Tops pattern in lightweight rayon jersey.  I didn't blog about this at the time, I don't know why.

I think I need more of these.

Red/Grey/Black pumps from Kenneth Cole.

The bracelet is made from antique bakelite and plastic buttons sewn on elastic. 

Current/Elliot "The Skinny Jean".  These are the same jeans I wore when I was modeling Mine.  I haven't hemmed them yet.  At that time they were a little snug in the waist.  They are not now.

Brown knit top from Soft Surroundings.  Now a bit too large.  The combination emphasizes the hips.  This may not be a bad thing.

Today I am wearing the gray tunic I showed you not long ago.  Without the belt the seam at the hip shows.  I am not sure how I feel about this but I probably obsess too much.  The belt was too much with the necklace which I wanted to wear.

The necklace is large,heavy, interlocking brass rings.  I don't remember who made it.

Gray tropical wool Banana Republic pants.  

Bronze cuff from Boston Proper Catalog.

Brown Suede Mules from Stuart Weitzman.

 

Baubles

I never intended to be absent so much from this blog but at the moment I simply seem to be running and running until I collapse in utter exhaustion.    I have plans for posts but summoning enough energy to actually write them seems beyond me.

I shall offer a brief treat instead.  

Pretty earrings made by my friend Theresa: 

These were given to me last week, and I have worn them already.  More on that in my next post.