Mischief Managed: Chicken wire does not deter dog

I don't know what's between the compost and the garage (crickets?), but Penny needs to get them.


She is not deterred by only having three or four inches of space in which to wriggle around trying to find that elusive but must-have something. Nor is she deterred by the marigolds blocking the entrance to said space. One of those marigolds is now crushed.


She doesn't get that something on the first venture into the crevice, so she backs out and tries again and again. It's a little like the part in Finding Nemo when Marlon and Nemo are getting ready for school and they're going in and out of the anemone. "First you go out, then go back in. Then you go back out, and then back in. Then go back in a third time, and then out. And if you want to do a fourth time...". I think here (above) she is on her way out, judging by how the fence is directing her doggy-mustache.


I don't know which way she's going now, but it's hilarious to watch her scale that chicken wire and make little grunts of effort.

The Replacement: pride bear

Geez, it's been a while...

In typical fashion, I started a new project before finishing any of the three I already had going. More on that later. Yesterday, I did manage to finish Laura's new bear, and I think it's cuter than the first one. As you can see, the rainbow arms and legs turned out pretty well - looking like she's ready to hit the gym in her fancy leg and arm warmers. Perhaps someday I'll make her a sweat band. Laura won't get it, but I'll think it's funny. I think she might need a sporty little white vest, too.

Of course, Laura still wanted her to have rainbow hair. She even helped me cut the strands one day while I was babysitting. Here is the bear before hair:


Relatively normal bear. But then Laura and I started the hair, and we only got so far before I had to leave, and she wanted to just be done with it and keep the bear, but this is how it looked:


That's pronounced moo-lay. We convinced her the bear would look better if I finished the hair. And it does:


I did knit a little rainbow for the belly in case she wanted her to have one, but it ended up as more of a triangle than an arc. Which really works with the pride-bear theme, but she was cute without it and Laura didn't mention anything today when I gave her the bear. She named it Bella, which is pretty much what she names everything.

LOLA Art Crawl, hefty bike ride, summer awesomeness

Last weekend was the first annual art crawl produced by the League of Longfellow Artists (LOLA). There are many celebrated art crawls/fairs/festivals spanning our short summer months, but this new event was exciting for me because the Longfellow neighborhood borders my own. Plus, some of our other art fairs are quite large and draw a lot of national artists - which is great! - but I also appreciate being able to see what my neighbors are turning out. AND it was the perfect day for a bike ride - sunny and 70 degrees. Actually, I was going to drive, but got to the empty garage and then remembered that hubs was using the car to help out a friend that day. So, yes, I biked out of necessity. But it was also delightful.


I stopped at 18 of the 23 locations, which speckled an area of about 20 by 30 city blocks. What is that in miles? I don't know. I do know that I biked about 9.5 miles (15 km), which is probably more than my bike has traveled in the last three years. I did map my ride, but the map would not save, so you can't see it.

In any case, the lovely Glass Endeavors (above) was one of my first stops. It's funny: I may never choose to put glasswork in my own house, yet I think it's fascinating and the colors are like candy. This place teaches classes and has sheets upon sheets of colored glass. Mmmm, candy.


After a few other places, I decided it was a good idea to open up my $600+ camera and take pictures while riding my bike. Don't tell hubs. Just kidding, he already knows. It's hard to hide things when they're on the internet.

I'm obsessed with trees, so I took a bunch of really boring pictures of them because I was trying to capture the way the sun looks shining through all that green. It's probably my favorite thing ever.


Somewhere in here I happened upon Vi Runquist, who has sculpted the cutest group of snow monkeys in the world and if I had the money I would totally buy them. She doesn't have a website, unfortunately, but you can Google her.

A couple of stops later, I found myself at the fabulous Mother Earth Gardens, and the Riverview Cafe and Wine Bar across the street (below). Rain barrels! The Ball Blue Book of Preserving! Weeding tools! Oh, I'll have to go back there someday. And glass artist Lisa Arnold was there, as was Linda Schneewind (one of my very favorites of the day, she designs organic tees).


Moving on...I came to the Fireroast Mountain Cafe (below). Honestly not a big fan of their coffee, but the building is fun and there were a few tents in the parking lot to be seen.


Now, I always felt like people who had animal art were a little crazy. Surely they weren't always crazy, but it's a slippery slope. Normal is at the top, and eccentric fanatic is at the bottom. Once they bought that first dog picture, it became easier to get the dog keychain, and then it was easier to commission someone to do a portrait of their dying dog to put over the mantel.


Well, Kat Corrigan and Mike Traver (not part of this show, but a former colleague) might make me change my mind. I'm not at the commissioning point yet, or even at the keychain point. But I really, really like their paintings. You can sort of see Kat's stuff in the tents (above).

Another awesome find was Gordon M. Coons, who was displaying at one of my next stops. He's an Ojibway/Ottawa artist and does paintings (some take-offs of classics, like "New World Scream") and small sculptures. My faves were the Red-winged Blackbirds, which aren't on his website, but the really cool "Makwa II" is, as well as some examples of how he incorporates gold leaf into his paintings.


Side story! I worked at a Dairy Queen the summer I was 16. Not this one. Every night I would go home with dried soft serve all crusted up my arms from making blizzards because this was in the days before they had those nifty paper tubes to assist in the blizzard-making process. And I remember that every shift, I would hear a Smashmouth song on the radio, make dilly bars, and eat some delicious treats. Those are the best hotdogs in existence, damn it! On the other hand, you don't ever want to sip the misty stuff without putting a flavor syrup in it. You also should think thrice before getting a dipped cone, because while the soft serve and even the hot fudge aren't so bad for you, whatever makes the dipping stuff solidify is VERY bad for you. But delicious, yes, I know. That job is also where I learned that rancid dairy products in the garbage really stink.


So I planned my bike ride to end down by the scenic Minnehaha Falls and park (above). The park building is not so pretty inside, but it serves the purpose of providing shelter and bathrooms, and I think you can host parties there. You can also have picnics and BBQs all over the place outside of the building, where there is an expanse of grass, trees, benches, tables, a little playground, and a band shell.

Steps away is the falls itself (below), which is currently actually flowing because we've had some rain. That has also made the park and everything else nice and green. You can walk down a bunch of steps to the bottom of the falls and go across, walk around, take pictures. Just don't do it in June with kids who will point out every dead caterpillar along the way.




You can rent these bike-thingies, which are pretty cool. I've seen people riding them at least a mile from the rental place, so they must be fun. At this point in my day, I was pretty tired. Too tired to find out what the bike-thingies are actually called or how much they cost.


Sea Salt Eatery is also right there in the park. They specialize in, um, seafood. And they host events and donate to neighborhood causes, so that's neat.


With only a few stops left, I crossed the Minnehaha Creek (which connects our fine city lakes), where some ducks were lazing. This area always amazes me because you might never guess it's in the middle of a city - that a block away there's a lightrail station and just down from that are grain mills. My great-grandma lived a couple blocks away from these ducks and when I was very little, I would visit her and she would take me on walks by the creek and teach me to spot Red-winged Blackbirds.


I've gone by this part of the creek many times, but just noticed that there is a fire hydrant almost hiding in the reeds. Weird.


This is why I live here.


Last pic from the bike.


Last stop of the crawl - Twisted Groove. They liked my hat (I made a red one for myself), and I liked them.


Home. 2 pm. Every Saturday should be like this.

Sweet, sweet freedom and refinishing a table

Yesterday was the official move-out date for sis and her family. It took the insurance company three and a half months to decide that they did not start their own fire and that the house and everything in it will be rebuilt, replaced, or refurbished.

To be clear, I love my family. But it has been a stressful summer living together. A of all, it's like having any other roommates - you do things differently and it just gets on the nerves. Secondly, nobody had the space they were used to or the freedom to walk around in their underwear (well, the kids did it often). C of three, everybody was all up in everybody else's business because of the proximity, and because there are simply a lot of issues to be dealt with; not the least of which has been hoping the insurance comes through and, meanwhile, jumping through their hoops.

So today the rest of the boxes will be picked up and brought to the new rental townhouse that the insurance is *finally* paying for. And I start my massive cleaning campaign. The real joy of it is that things won't become sticky, smelly, or just dirty within hours of cleaning. My counter will not constantly be a sickening combination of spilled milk, gooey cereal bits, cracker crumbs, and some kind of glue-like substance or another. There will not be handprints on my doors. I will be picking up after myself and the hubs, and no one else. Glorious.

Quasi-related is the clearing out of my grandma's house, which works out nicely for people who have recently lost everything in a fire, as well as for other family members who have inherited a penchant for hoarding. I always feel a little guilty when I go over there because I always come back home with something, like I'm pilfering things out of someone else's home. Because that's pretty much what I'm doing. But grandma doesn't need the stuff. And by adopting some of it, I'm reducing the world's trash and saving money for myself. Right? For example:


It was my mom's job as a girl to keep this table dusted. Now I've taken it home to become a plant stand because I HAVE NO HOUSE PLANTS, which is just ridiculous and unhealthy and I've vowed to change that, and now I don't have to buy a plant stand.

I started sanding it yesterday - by hand - so you can see the difference between the bare wood and the old, scratched, syrupy-looking finish. I have never refinished anything myself, so we'll see how this goes. Frankly, I may be lucky to get past sanding, what with all the nooks and crannies of the legs and the various under-parts that might have to be removed.


So now that my house and time are once again mine, I feel like I owe it to myself to go on a crafting binge and (once again) put the job search off for a spell. My God, I've had a lot of *reasons* to put off getting a job. Coincidence?

Sexy Asian Farmhouse Antiques

No, this blog has not been hacked. There is a legitimate reason for today's title...

Antiques, my very smart husband points out, are TOTALLY related to crafting. You know, because they're so old they were made when things were done by hand. Crafted, if you will.

So while doing a little freelance data entry (woo hoo) for the store my mom manages over in St. Louis Park, I discovered the FUNNIEST SIGN EVER outside of an antique shop just down the street.

Well, I didn't discover the sign, I just happened to take a picture of it. Saying I "discovered" the sign would be like making the claim that, inexplicably, history teachers of the last two centuries have been making - that Columbus "discovered" America.

Anyways, I needed to see for myself what this sign could possibly mean. So when I was done working - despite having digits and map codes still blurring my vision - I toddled over to see the goods. A lot of stuff was new, which is weird for an antique store. Or as one furniture shop by my house likes to call them, "newtiques." It's written on their awning. And I guess they aren't the only ones, because if you Google it you get a bunch of results. So I guess that's what you call new things in an antique store.

Anyways, cheesy, kitchy, and really awesome old tables aside, another woman came in while I was there and started regaling the employee about how she works in the area and knows tons of people on this very busy thoroughfare and they are laughing at the sign. They don't know what it means, and they're laughing at it. The employee knew just what to do. Call the manager/owner. So the woman is regaling the manager/owner now over the phone about how people are laughing at the sign, and she thinks it should be changed.

OK, enough. Here it is:

Sculpter I am not

When playing with playdoh, we like to make:
1) oddly colored spaghetti (in hot pink or nuclear green)
2) long, thin rolls which can become snakes, worms, tails, tongues, boogers, eyebrows, earrings, mustaches, fu manchus, or soul patches. Really any kind of facial hair.
3) sculptures:



Um, it's a labrador and a jack russell. Duh. See the long tail/ears and the short tail/ears? Anatomically correct, my sculptures are. Good, my sculptures are not.

WIPs: I've got rainbows coming out my...

Following the same theme as the first bear (Grateful Dead Teddy), Laura's replacement bear is going to be a crazed, drugged-up rainbow fiend.


Here, you see the arms and the legs that lead up to the base of the body (otherwise known as the crotch), as well as the rainbow ganglii that flow from their psychedelic rainbow origins. The body and head will be pink, but the hair will make a reappearance and, if the child insists upon it, the belly rainbow might be back, too.


This the same shrug I made for myself in blue. I measured it for my sister and am doing a seed stitch instead of the stockinette and I'm in love with the color. Cream. Boring. I love it.


And THIS is proof that I will not be bested by a knitting pattern's directions to knit 11 together. The Miragamo bag WILL happen. *she says, although she has only gotten through the top band*

Why do I agree to these things?

I recently had a very generous offer from one of my grandmother-in-laws to have an old sewing machine. I figured it had to be better than the one already in my possession. What I didn't know was that it is attached to a sewing table. I already had a sewing machine AND a sewing table. But I come from a long line of keepers (hoarders, in other words). Goodness knows my mom probably three Tupperware containers made solely for mixing salad dressing because she inherited one from my grandma and one from my great-grandma and no, she can't just throw them out or give them away and besides, me or sis might want them someday.


So now I have two old sewing machines (the original in sitting on top of new one, which is folded inside the table), and two sewing tables (the old is folded up and propped against some shelves because I have nowhere else to put it). The new table, thankfully, is much more attractive and even has storage in the doors. I have not tested the "new" machine, but the "old" one badly needs a tuneup so it probably works at least as well. The kicker is that I'm not a frickin sewer. So despite the midwestern depression-style reasons floating around in my head of why it would be sensible to keep all of this, I will resist and rid myself of the ugly old table and machine.

In other news...because I have to share this...



I went to see Jason Mraz in concert last night AND IT WAS AWESOME! Opening were K'Naan (a fun Somali singer/rapper) and G Love and Special Sauce (doing some sweet things on the harmonica).

Photo by Jeff Wheeler, Star Tribune

Celebrating GREEN and other summer colors

As often as I remember, I like to take a moment to fully appreciate how lovely summer is in Minnesota, because I know that soon - always too soon - it will snow. Fall is nice and snow is fine for a while...but does it have to go on and on and on through January and February and March and even April? Sheesh. Why do we live here again?

Ah, summer. Gardening has helped me reflect on this since I have to go out and pick a couple dozen beans every day. So I thought I would share more of our garden.


It doesn't look so giant here, but the ripening tomato is giant. We've picked a few tomatoes, and in about two days I'll have handfuls more. Luckily, we also have ripe jalapenos and a green pepper and maybe a couple of small onions (the onions are wearing the garden dunce cap this year). Mmmmm, fresh salsa.


My mom puts fresh cilantro in her fresh salsa, but ours has flowered and I refuse to buy a bundle at the store because you get so much that you throw away 80% of it. But fresh Italian parsley I have in abundance. We've already dried enough to refill our shaker, but it. just. keeps. growing. It's practically eclipsing the thyme and oregano.


Woo hoo! Broccoli. We thought the broccoli was going to be the garden dunce because of a lot of sneaky green worms that had been eating the leaves. But they stopped. And the broccoli grew ridiculously huge (I guess; I've never grown it before) so as to shade and, thus, totally stunt my second planting of lettuce rows. And now we have this one clump and there's a faint broccoli smell in the area.


We also didn't know if we would have success with the sunflowers we started too late. But it looks like, once again *swiping brow*, luck is with us.

LYS: Needlework Unlimited

I decided to make it a tradition to knit myself a sweater every year, this year being the first (so we'll see how the "tradition" thing goes). Here's the sweater, pattern by Loumms, that I'll be making:


I decided to go to Needlework Unlimited to find yarn. I'd only been there once before and I had forgotten how totally awesome it is. Huge selection of yarn, plus purse handles, needles, and - what all the best shops have - leather pads for mittens and slippers.


This small pic isn't the half of it. I spent, oh, 30 or 40 minutes just wandering around touching everything and reading labels and then circling the store in such a manner three or four more times. Finally, I asked an employee her opinion on subbing yarn and settled on Cascade 220 - very reasonably priced and tons of colors. Of course, I choose a boring cream color.

Whatever. The point is that NU is awesome and today I found out they have an outlet. Both locations are across town, but I'll probably save up my projects and make the trek anyways. And during the summer it's a really nice drive through the city via our fabulous creek/parkway/lakes system.



I hope it's fortuitous that the designer's body looks to be the twin of mine and my first foray into sweater-making is successful.