Where the heck is this Global Warming they keep promising us?!

Crap it's cold outside. I wouldn't've gone out but I had to get my final immunization for work.

Anyway, since I haven't worked in the last few days and I don't want to go anywhere, I was able to return to the corset I started a few weeks ago yesterday. I made the laughing moon silverado, as I read some good reviews of it on the net, and I figured since I am not the most accurate sewer I had better go with something relatively easy.
It was indeed easy, the only problems being it is a little large at the bottom (I can actually lace it closed) and well, my corset looks nothing like the one in the picture...it's supposed to be a rather long corset, and even though I added nearly an inch to the length, mine just doesn't look that long. Or really that shape. I think my waist is too low. Ah well no matter. I was actually worried it was going to be too small at first-good thing I went with a size smaller than the chart.

I decided to wear it for awhile yesterday as my back had been bothering me. Since I can't bend at the waist I also can't curve my back in an impossibly severe and contorted arch as I am wont to, so it does help. Well it did until my mom said "let me see", and proceeded to choke the life out of me because she wanted to see how tight she could get the bloody thing. I'm surprised she didn't put her knee in my back for leverage she was tugging at it so hard (and I think the only reason she didn't is because she's too short to do so). This was when I discovered it does close up at the bottom. And that mama is a sadist-no I guess I always knew that..

I still need to bind it and pick up some lace beading (that isn't too precious that is) for a trim. I decided to do some embroidery on it-and now I'm not sure I didn't prefer it without it. Mama likes the embroidery, but it just doesn't look as good as I expected I guess.

Anyway, here is the front with the embroidery-yes I hate it when people cut their heads off in photos-but it's only this once-the photo rendered my hair a truly hideous orange.



And here is the back-closed at the bottom as you can see-I should have made a 10 with an 8 bottom I guess. Well I'll know that if I ever make another. As for the weird curve in the chest part; I think that is because of the way I'm standing, though I did cut it a little less than straight and I had to take all the seams out there as my back is so broad. My brother and I have exactly the same build and I can say it looks better on a man.

Someone Else Like Me

...doesn't exist, thank God! That would cause quite the spike in the rapture index-rivaled perhaps only by the legging revival. (Now I must go puke because I have thought about leggings).

Self-depreciation aside, I managed to save this from the clutches of WMRC and it turned out more or less okay;


If I Had to Die for Someone; Mohair spun on drop spindle and knitted in lace pattern on 2.5 needles.

I figured it's going to be tiny and I'll do a most simple pattern so it shouldn't take too long and started working...two months or so ago. I forgot that using 2.5 needles means that you will need 2 million rows or so to get the length. I also decided to leave the mohair as a single, which caused problems with breakage when WMRC shooed it through the ENTIRE house. Twice. Fortunately she never got the work off the needle (the ball was the fun part anyway). Also lucky was that hellion 2 didn't see it-he particularly enjoyed the zippy sound of tearing out some knitting of mama's row by row by row by row. Ad infinitium.

I did the spinning with the mohair I got from "Al" (I discovered that is the goat's name) last summer-it was actually the first thing I spun after getting the lace weight spindle and wonderful fibre combs, so it has been laying around waiting for me to start this piece so that it might tickle and itch me all over again. It's rather uneven, but that just made it interesting. Yeah, interesting. I meant it to be that way. Yeah.

I can only say as to inspiration, that I think the line I played off of here is one of their most absurd. How does one get "too old" for keeping warm? Is this caused by middle age spare tire? Hot flashes?

You are NEVER to old to avoid hypothermia, Bob.

:P

The WMRC and Other Highlights

I can't believe It's 2007. I say that every year though...I told one of my coworkers that time must seem to go faster when you reach adulthood as you are no longer waiting for the milestones and events that make one "grown up" that take so long to come when you are that age.
She told me not to worry, as time slows down again once you are old enough to start counting down to the milestone of retirement. Hah!

For some reason I feel like doing the obligatory "look back", even though as usual I spent most of the time thinking "I gotta quit being so lazy-tomorrow! Or next year!" Ah as someone who lives by the power of inertia, I have to confess that I avoid change like the plague. Of course this year change has forced it's way into my life, like it or not. The year has been bookended with life altered and lost, my dad's death in March and now my aunt's terminal prognosis. With the death of my dad, I know nothing can be picked up and put back the way it was again. Well such changes are irrevocable so I am forced into learning to live with them.


In May, I finally finished my certification as a CCA (and I think the redesignation of the term from SCA is stupid but I need to make a New Year's Resolution to rant less about stupidity) after a year and a half of on and off classes, first by correspondence and then in a classroom setting. I discovered that I still hate school, though I admit I do miss many of the people I trained with.

My training did prove invaluable at the end of my dad's life as I was able to do all of his personal care, and my teacher was very helpful. That was especially appreciated as my entire family was next to useless through the last few months.


Then of course it was left to actually get a job (well in the public system rather than the crummy private facilities that is-I already had one of those). When I did my practicum at the lodge in February I hated it and was dreading having to work there. I have since gotten over it and am slowly improving, even at the 6 am shift. I managed through my first death and only sobbed like a baby about it for a day or two...I just finished my probationary period in December-now I am in with the union and they will never be rid of me! Bwahahahaha!


Mama and I also decided to take a trip out to the Maritime region. She and my Dad were going to go out there on their honeymoon and never got any farther than Montreal. They said they'd go one day-eventually (now you know where I get it from). Dad especially wanted to see the Confederation bridge after it had been built. This of course never happened, so we decided to go out there "for" him so to speak. It was lovely, as we went in the fall. Some regions of the country actually have seasons other than winter, summer and transitional week.


This has not been a particularly prolific year for me artistically. I have spent most of it obsessing over Athanasius and yet getting sidetracked continually, so all is normal in my own special world where one can exhibit traits of both ADHD and OCD at once. Now that I am actually getting somewhere on the project I am beginning to feel a little better, provided the World's Most Retarded Cat leaves it alone.

As mentioned I had a quilt published in a national magazine and tour across the US before being returned in November. I won't beat that horse anymore. Other than that, I did a few baby quilts-the one for my newest nephew/hellion James is of the most ugly fabric, but it has dragons and flames on it so I knew my brother would like it. It turned out much nicer than I expected, fabric notwithstanding. And I thought about the gospel as I made it.

I kept somewhat busy with decos and such, not as many as I would have liked though. I have also been keeping a "visual journal of mundanity" which has provoked some bemused expressions from others who come into contact with it. Still...trying...to force...self...to use...sketchbooks!

I finished numbers 44 to 66 of CIP . Yeah not a ragingly high number of pieces, but I am steadily working on it, if The World's Most Retarded Cat doesn't manage to destroy any more pieces (she is particularly fond of carrying the work for If I Had to Die For Someone up and down the house-hiding it does no good-I am convinced she must seek it out specially).

Speaking of The WMRC, when we went on vacation we asked someone to check on Morgana-which they did not do, so she disappeared. We live in a trailer, and with winter approaching, one does not go without a cat unless one is a magnanimouse person who has decided the little rabid hanta-virus spreading critters of the field need love too. At your house.
We are not those ones, so we got a new cat. She has turned out to be an idiot savant. She lays in her litter box, the friggin dumbbunny. However she displays an amazing capacity for getting at small things and playing with them to their destruction. And despite her abject stupidity, she is pretty cute.
WMRC is her official title, but her name is Marty. She's black and white, and my brother the catnamer picked the name as his son is obsessed with Madagascar. Usually we call her in the manner of the slow motion scene from the film; Maaarrrrttttyyyy.. oh sugarhoneyicetea-uh yeah the hellions were also enamored of the show and we have all seen it enough times to have memorized ninety percent of the dialogue.

Oh and the Hellions have been a town away from us since March or so. This has wreaked some interesting havoc with our lives, but we are finding ourselves adjusting accordingly. Not without complaining, as Moores are wont to do.

We are adjusting to all the changes we hate so much. Life in a state of flux has almost become routine over the past few years (if that's possible). Maybe I will even learn embrace change and make necessary ones myself. Tomorrow though. Or next year.