Baby Knitting

Well, it's happened. I've let myself take a break from my long-standing blanket knitting project for my brother in order to knit a baby shower gift. So this dish cloth cotton

has become the start of a Mason Dixon Knitting Baby Kimono.

I have a week to get this thing done. Otherwise, the mom-to-be is getting a washcloth. Wish me luck.

A Garden of my very Own: Flowering Fauna

A lot of the real pizzazz that has been happening in my yard has already come to a close, the buds all flowering and falling, but for the past few weeks, I was welcomed into my new home by the garden around me. Every day brought a new bloom of color, little fireworks in my front lawn.

Discovery 1: A Forsythia bush
I wasn't quite sure what this yellow monstrosity was until I asked my part-time flower-shop-worker mother-in-law. I really never noticed that they existed, but once we found the one in our back yard, they were everywhere. Everywhere. I think it's a conspiracy.

While it's gorgeous for the two or three weeks it blooms, it's less than attractive the rest of the year. Also, the previous owners planted it too close to a fence line so it grows out diagonally, which will look rather awkward after we tear the fence down. Likely, we won't have a forsythia bush after next year. Unless I buy a new one.

Discovery 2: Columbines
I'm new to the existence of columbines. When the shooting at Columbine happened when I was in high school, for example, I had no idea the school was named after a flower. However, one of my aunts has given a number of columbines to mother, who is a fan of the columbine, over the years since. While de-crabgrassing the front beds, I noticed a few columbines. Sadly, some of them lost there lives during the battle. There are always causalities in wartime. Fortunately a number of columbines live on, both in the front and back yards, including those that have white, purple, and pink blooms.

Discovery 3: Four lilac bushes, plus a number of baby bushes that will need to be transplanted.
And here I was, sad about the lack of lilac bushes. Two of them have darker flowers.

Two of them have lighter flowers.

Discovery 4: Wisteria vines
We have three, two that have grown up the opposite sides of a trellis to form a living, CO2 breathing doorway into the front yard, both of which have purple flowers.

Another vine of white flowers shares a trellis with a none-wistera vine that we have yet to identify. It may be a clematis.

Discovery 5: Lily of the Valley, Blue Bells, and Violets

One of the best smells in existence: Lily of the Valley. Second only to Lilac.

I'd like to have a few more violets than I do, but I'll  take what I can get. Violets were my grandmother's favorite flower.

Discovery 6: The Beauty of my flowering trees

All of them in bloom at the same time, a grove of rose-colored hue. A flowering cherry.

A pink-blossomed dogwood.

A redbud.

Not to mention the two Japanese maples (one in the front, one with the rest of the flowering trees) and three magnolias, two in the front, one with the rest of the flowering trees).

Discovery 7: Two azalea bushes

We knew about the rhododendron bush out front, which blooms pink, but the azaleas, one in the front and one in the back, where a surprise.

The discoveries keep on coming, even as I continue my quest to rub out the crabgrass and plant my vegetables. The fun is only just beginning.

Another Draft Done

If any of my former composition or creative writing students ever wonder if I practice what I preach, here is the proof right here: another completed draft of my novel. This one is chronologized with time monikers replacing chapter markers and the narrator listed in a subhead whenever the point of view changes. The entire process was equal parts Mrs Dalloway and Louise Erdrich, with a smattering of Wells Tower, I like to think. (If I've never recommended it, run out and read Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. It is the single most narratively diverse and broad in subject-matter of any story collection I've ever read. Ever.)

While it sounds rather complex and was rather time consuming, the result seems simple and straightforward. It definitely looks more like a cohesive novel,which is what my agent was looking for, but I guess I'll find out if I succeeded to an acceptable end when I learn whether or not it needs further revision.

And I'm game for revision (within limits). Why? Because I practice what I preach. Now, if you are currently a composition student and your teacher has recently commented on your rough draft that you need to reorganize to fit your thesis statement, go do it. Right now, because your teacher is right. 100%. Listen to him/her. They know.

In literary news, I am now reading the sixth 44 Scotland Street novel, The Importance of Being Seven. I am just as smitten with this installation as I have been with the last five. It appears as though there are still two or three books in the series, so I'll have to seek them out at some point. They were not on the shelves at my new local library. I'm still keen on serialized novels, both writing and reading them, so if you know of any modern or postmodern literary authors writing in this format, let me know. I'm interested in reading them.

"Children were no longer made to learn poetry by heart. And so the deep rhythms of the language, its inner music, was lost to them, because they had never it embedded in their minds. And geography had been abandoned too -- the basic knowledge of how the world looked, simply never instilled; all in the name of educational theory and of the goal of teaching children how to think. But what, she wondered, was the point of teaching them how to think if they had nothing to think about?"

-Alexander McCall Smith, Love Over Scotland

Ravelry Conundrum

I started making progress on the first intarsia square of the maize and blue stained glass blanket, promised at Christmas to my brother, in hopes of my completing it by his birthday in July. I really did. I made serious progress. Many, many rows were knit. And they still are knit, but the tension isn't quite right in places and I didn't put the yarn into bobbins so now its getting tangled all the time. I might need to rip it out and start over. I'm starting to doubt the feasibility of a July completion date.

On top of that, I have an impending baby shower at the end of May. Do I dare to consider making a wee hat or some wee mittens for the little one? Can I spare the time from the blanket? I know I shouldn't. However, apparently the knitter in me does not agree and has already purchased some cotton yarn with which to make a shower gift for a baby boy.

I'm thinking it could be either the Tea Cozy Elf Hat or the Mazon Dixon Knitting dish cloth cotton Baby Kimono. For the hat to have its full impact, though, it would require that the mommy understands that Dobby the house elf wore a tea cozy for a hat. Thus, if she is not a fan of Harry Potter, she might not get the reference, and I'm not sure she is into the Wizarding World in all its glory. Subsequently, I'm leaning towards the baby kimono, which I've heard from many corners is a great baby gift knit. Plus, the yarn I bought is dish cloth cotton.

Of course, when I purchased my new yarn for this special occasion, it hit me. Despite my best efforts to get my knitterly life organized and tabulated on ravelry, I never seem to keep up with it. As a result, my ravelry  queue is again horribly out-of-date, my stash has grown larger than my ravelry stash listings, and I have no idea which of my knitting books is added to my library and which aren't. The idea of having ravelry features to organize your stuff is genius, but the functionality of all those features gets a bit cloudy in practice. Who can remember to add a listing every time they buy a new knitting book or skein of yarn? Maybe some can, but I am not that girl.

No, I am not. In an atttempt to be that girl, I have faithfully listed to all of the organized knitter podcasts, but none of it has sunk in yet. I'm not sure it ever will.

A Garden of my Very Own: Work in Progress

Things have been busy at our new home. While it was cold, we focused more on fixing up the interior, but then, warmth slowly returned to the Cleveland area and with it, life came to the garden. I learned that I have several Yucca plants, three magnolia tress, a dogwood, a redbud, hyacinths, hygrangeas, clover, violets, daffodils, lilly of the valley, ferns, a very tall Japanese maple. The list goes on and on. Of course, you may notice that missing among this list is those plants that would be considered edible.

At first, we just noticed the faint traces of green peaking out through the winter detritus and the old downed birds nest in the honeysuckle(?) vine. 

Then, the green began popping up in earnest. The magnolias blossomed in gorgeous blooms of white and pink. Just like that, a frost hit and took out all the blooms. Two days of magnolia and that was about it. Flowers gone until next year. Inevitably, though, warmth took root, seemed to want to stay.

I got out my hoe and gardening gloves and I got to work. Our short-sale purchase was left without caretakers for a year. That's a year in which the crabgrass had a chance to take hold over what seems to have been the annuals bed in the front garden. It was so thick, I could hardly make out the few nonweed plants hidden in the tangle. I begin the slow, week-long process of clearing away the weeds. 

Over a dozen bags full of crabgrass and an entire saturday (and a nasty sunburn to boot) later, the bed was clear for what I have planned. And what I have planned is an herb and ornamental edibles garden.

Of course, to make my plan a reality, I needed the plants, so we piled in the Subaru and headed out to Chagrin Falls, where my favorite greenhouse is located, Lowe's Greenhouse. Next year, of course, we'll search for one that's closer to home, but this year, I wanted to stick with what I know to ease the stress of the process a bit. We've had plenty of newness already this year.

I must admit I went a bit crazy during the plant selection process. And while we still have an apple tree, a cherry tree, and raspberry and currant bushes to find, I think I got us plenty to deal with in the meantime, including several tomato plants, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, peppers, strawberries, kale, chard, spinach, arugula, and beets for the veggies/fruits and basil, cilantro, rosemary, thyme, savory, climbing mint, chocolate mint, chamomile, parsley, catnip, and lavender seeds for the herbs. I may be forgetting a few.

Of course, now I can't plant any of them yet, because there will likely be another frost on mother's day. Thus, I will be spending the next week or so bringing my two pallets of plants onto the indoor porch at night and taking them out again in the morning with a good watering to get them through the day on the front walk in the sun. That crabgrass had so better not grow back before I get this all planted.

Now, I need to tackle the backyard bed that the veggies will go in. Currently, it is covered in a gardening cloth and in that cloth, the only plant hardy enough to break through its sturdy fabric has colonized: pricker bushes. All over. I'm going to need thicker gloves.

Why I should be writing serialized novels and other revelations

I just finished reading Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street, which I picked up as a fluke at my new local library. (I went down that aisle in search of either the first book of the chronicles of Professor Dr Von Igelfeld or The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Alas, both were out.) The book uses multiple character narration told in the third person in very short snippet-like chapters that last roughly three pages each. The short chapters build on one another with multiple epidsodic mini-conflicts, as well as a subtle over-arching conflict about a painting and the building relationships of those who populate the address that is the novel's title. I rather enjoyed the way the characters sketched themselves on the page and how they fit together in the world of the narrative. It was quiet but stirring and highly entertaining to boot.

At the start of the book, its foreward explained the way in which the book is set up and its origins. You see, the book is born from the author's decision to write a serialized novel in a Scottish newspaper a la Charles Dickens. That's when it hits me: that's the gig I need.

I would make an excellent serialized novelist. I work well when on strict deadline, I edit as I type (though not as closely whist blogging, which I humbly apologize for but will probably not correct in future blog posts), and I'd rather fix a plot issue by adjusting as I go rather than go back and rewrite sections from earlier in a novel. What's more, I usually know the end of the book before I begin, which makes structuring, pacing, and planning a serial novel much easier. The problem here is not that I chose the wrong profession. No. The problem is I was born in the wrong century to really illustrate my greatest gifts as a writer.

What I need is a newspaper looking for a way to gain readership located in a city with a population interested in a novel structured as though it where a recurring strip in the funnies. This could be genius in the making, folks.

As I contemplate this new genre commitment, I have taken the liberty of taking the other five books in the series out of the library as well. I'm on Espresso Tales.

There's a Fox in the Etsy Shop

If you haven't heard, trouble has arrived for a number of unsuspecting sellers on Etsy. The reason for this trouble has beginnings that span a decade into the past, when a crappy network decided to cancel one of the best shows on television after less than half the length of a normal season and after airing the few episodes they did air in the wrong gorram order.

Despite the network's lack of decency, the fans of this show, self-proclaimed as Browncoats, kept the series alive, fought for it so long and so hard that it lived on to become the only canceled series ever to be turned into a movie. And that movie did very very well, which the network took full advantage of, seeing as they still owned the rights to this show that they neglected and cast down without ever giving it a real chance.

That show was Firefly and the network was Fox.

For a decade, Browncoats everywhere have been crafting merchandise inspired by Firefly, because they sure as heck didn't get a lot of merchandise options from the network who abandoned their show. Now, as of last week, Fox has found an entirely new way of sticking it to Firefly fans. You see, Fox has belatedly decided to cash in on the fanbase by selling so-called Jayne hats through Thinkgeek (who are now donating all proceeds to a Browncoat charity that benfits equality because of Fox's misdeeds).

As you well know if you are a fan of the whedonverse and Firefly in particualr, in the episode "The Message" (which was one of the 3 episodes of the show Fox didn't even air before they cancelled it), Jayne Cobb opens a package from his mother in which is a rather loud orange and yellow earflap hat that his mother made for him. He proceeds to wear said hat through the rest of the episode, while various other characters make digs at his ugly headgear. The Jayne hat is much-beloved by fans, especially those of the knitting persuasion (like myself). Many sellers on etsy sell their own versions of the Jayne hat, made by their own hands and have for years without the interference of Fox. Until now.

Now, all of those etsy sellers selling the Jayne hat and any other Firefly-related or inspired merchandise found there stores shut down due to copyright/trademark violation, even if they did not mention Firefly or Jayne in the tags or name of the product, even if they only used a quotation from the movie as the moniker for a self-invented product that otherwise has nothing to do with Fox whatsoever. We are taking single mothers/fathers and little old ladies and self-employed business owners who rely on their Etsy shop as their sole source of income. And Fox and Etsy shut them down without so much as a word of warning or a fair shake.

I will be making a Jayne hat, when I'm not immersed in my brothers giant blanet of doom (aka the Maize and Blue Stained Glass Blanket), in protest and I encourage all my knitting compatriots, whether Browncoat or never-watched-that-show-in-my-life, to do likewise or, better yet, to find one of these closed etsy sellers and purchase a Jayne hat from them. We proles need to stick together when the giant evil corporation comes along and ruins everything. Again.