Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Work in Progress Wednesday
I started Jalie 2804 a couple of weeks ago. It's a simple pattern that should go together quickly, but I had set up my sewing in the dining room and we had friends over to visit so I put it all away in the interests of tidiness. I just got it back out and still have to finish the hemming.
I love this blue fabric, which is good because I have a boatload of it. I'm not sure what else to make out of it. I've been pondering the latest issue of Ottobre Woman, of course. And Thalia and I had a rather silly conversation about making an Irish Dance solo dress out of it (it would be just perfect for something with a slit up the side, you know, but it doesn't quite have the shimmer you'd want for showing off shimmies ... which led to demonstrating Irish Dance with shimmies).
I put in the modesty panel this time. I'm not sure if I like it. It's lower than my swimsuit tan line.
I'm also knitting away on the socks, but they look about the same as last week, just longer. I'm ready to turn the heel.
In the meantime, I got into a conversation about spices with the friends who came over and interrupted the sewing. The woman said she gives her kids a mixture of equal parts fresh ginger juice, fresh lime juice, and honey when they start to get the sniffles, and it typically knocks the cold right out (they are from India, and I'm not sure whether this is considered a typical home remedy). Since Annabeth was starting to sniffle last night I stopped off at the store for some fresh ginger root while ferrying her back and forth to dance. We always have limes around. And honey.
For the record, it's a really hot combination...
...but more palatable than my typical concoction of chopped garlic, fresh lemon juice, and honey.
Annabeth took several tiny spoonfuls last night and this morning, but it looks as though I still need to go restock tissues.
I love this blue fabric, which is good because I have a boatload of it. I'm not sure what else to make out of it. I've been pondering the latest issue of Ottobre Woman, of course. And Thalia and I had a rather silly conversation about making an Irish Dance solo dress out of it (it would be just perfect for something with a slit up the side, you know, but it doesn't quite have the shimmer you'd want for showing off shimmies ... which led to demonstrating Irish Dance with shimmies).
I put in the modesty panel this time. I'm not sure if I like it. It's lower than my swimsuit tan line.
I'm also knitting away on the socks, but they look about the same as last week, just longer. I'm ready to turn the heel.
In the meantime, I got into a conversation about spices with the friends who came over and interrupted the sewing. The woman said she gives her kids a mixture of equal parts fresh ginger juice, fresh lime juice, and honey when they start to get the sniffles, and it typically knocks the cold right out (they are from India, and I'm not sure whether this is considered a typical home remedy). Since Annabeth was starting to sniffle last night I stopped off at the store for some fresh ginger root while ferrying her back and forth to dance. We always have limes around. And honey.
For the record, it's a really hot combination...
...but more palatable than my typical concoction of chopped garlic, fresh lemon juice, and honey.
Annabeth took several tiny spoonfuls last night and this morning, but it looks as though I still need to go restock tissues.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Break the Chain
Wendy is issuing a challenge to buy locally for the month of October.
Something to think about, and something to spread the word about.
Something to think about, and something to spread the word about.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Graham Feis
The Good
All 4 stages for our dances are in one area. I had been sort of cranky earlier in the week that Thalia's dances were scheduled to be scattered over 3 stages, which is typically tough to keep track of, especially if the stages are in separate rooms. But, hey, we realized Friday night that everything is in the same room, so maybe that seemingly bad scheduling won't be so bad.
The Bad
All 4 stages are in one area ... and it isn't a particularly big area. Isn't there some sort of metric to tell the minimum cubic feet necessary to accommodate X number of dancers on X number of stages? Because on the night before the feis (Friday night) Thalia and I were looking over the setup, and trying to picture how this was going to work, and we just couldn't see this being anything but a mess.
The Ugly
Did I mention that all 4 stages are in one area? One SMALL area? That idea I had that we could look across the room and see what Stage 3 was on while we were sitting in front of Stage 2? There are so many people packed into the place that you can't even see the sign for Stage 3. You can barely fight your way in and out of the room. Egads. What an intimate setting. I can't tell you the number of complaints I heard in passing.
Here's what's a shame -- they had a big pavilion available where everyone could spread out. But there wasn't signage indicating that people could go out there and dump all their stuff there. Also, plenty of room in the pavilion to hang out and wait for a dancer's competition level to begin, BUT the pavilion was a hike from the stages, and there was no way to tell what was going on at the stages when you were at the pavilion. Some sort of large screen that showed what competition was happening on which stage would've been really handy. Clarkson does this at the An Samhra feis, so it's not like people would have to invent new technology -- the stage managers at An Samhra enter the info on laptops as they're running the stage.
So we sat at the stages so we could keep track of what was going on.
Notice the squishiness of that photo? Annabeth is sitting in row 2 of the 3 rows of seats provided.
There's a shot of row 3, then some people packed behind them, standing there watching the dancing. See that guy in the white and green shirt facing the other way? He's standing right behind the 3 rows of the stages on the OTHER side of the room. HELLO, WE ARE A TIN OF SARDINES.
Anyway, setting aside the space problems (and, wow, it's hard to think about anything else when thinking about this feis) there was some weirdness with the timing on Stage 3. I didn't ever quite catch on what the problem was, since all anyone was talking about was how small the room was. Someone said a couple of judges flights were cancelled. ?? Thalia said they didn't want the stage to run too fast, so they had to take a break ... ?? ... then she checked in, sat around waiting for about 20 minutes (not a bad deal, since there was more room in the checked-in seating area than anywhere else) because apparently they were waiting for people from Stage 5. Then the kids were lined up on stage to dance ... then stood there for quite a long time. Thalia revealed that she positioned herself to dance first because she thought her feet would probably fall asleep from standing there so long.
And after all of that waiting, waiting, and more waiting, she got a 1st in that dance. So that was pretty cool.
As the day wore on several people left -- the beginners danced first, so all of them cleared out by late morning. Then it was time for lunch. We had packed a lunch, so Annabeth had time to practice on stage with some of her friends during the break.
(We think the foot movement on that photo is fun.)
And then suddenly things were whipping along. Thalia and Annabeth danced Slip Jig at the exact same time on adjacent stages -- this exact same thing happened at the An Samhra feis last year. Sort of a weird coincidence. Also, their Treble Jigs competed at the same time, although they didn't dance at the exact same time.
That's the Treble Jig lineup. Thalia is with the tall kids on the righthand stage -- she's just to the left of the girl in pink. Annabeth is with the short kids -- she's 3rd from the right of the shorties.
In the end, Thalia's had some good results, Annabeth had mediocre results, and we survived. I'm sure Graham will learn from the experience and try something different next year. I'm sure we all hope they do.
All 4 stages for our dances are in one area. I had been sort of cranky earlier in the week that Thalia's dances were scheduled to be scattered over 3 stages, which is typically tough to keep track of, especially if the stages are in separate rooms. But, hey, we realized Friday night that everything is in the same room, so maybe that seemingly bad scheduling won't be so bad.
The Bad
All 4 stages are in one area ... and it isn't a particularly big area. Isn't there some sort of metric to tell the minimum cubic feet necessary to accommodate X number of dancers on X number of stages? Because on the night before the feis (Friday night) Thalia and I were looking over the setup, and trying to picture how this was going to work, and we just couldn't see this being anything but a mess.
The Ugly
Did I mention that all 4 stages are in one area? One SMALL area? That idea I had that we could look across the room and see what Stage 3 was on while we were sitting in front of Stage 2? There are so many people packed into the place that you can't even see the sign for Stage 3. You can barely fight your way in and out of the room. Egads. What an intimate setting. I can't tell you the number of complaints I heard in passing.
Here's what's a shame -- they had a big pavilion available where everyone could spread out. But there wasn't signage indicating that people could go out there and dump all their stuff there. Also, plenty of room in the pavilion to hang out and wait for a dancer's competition level to begin, BUT the pavilion was a hike from the stages, and there was no way to tell what was going on at the stages when you were at the pavilion. Some sort of large screen that showed what competition was happening on which stage would've been really handy. Clarkson does this at the An Samhra feis, so it's not like people would have to invent new technology -- the stage managers at An Samhra enter the info on laptops as they're running the stage.
So we sat at the stages so we could keep track of what was going on.
Notice the squishiness of that photo? Annabeth is sitting in row 2 of the 3 rows of seats provided.
There's a shot of row 3, then some people packed behind them, standing there watching the dancing. See that guy in the white and green shirt facing the other way? He's standing right behind the 3 rows of the stages on the OTHER side of the room. HELLO, WE ARE A TIN OF SARDINES.
Anyway, setting aside the space problems (and, wow, it's hard to think about anything else when thinking about this feis) there was some weirdness with the timing on Stage 3. I didn't ever quite catch on what the problem was, since all anyone was talking about was how small the room was. Someone said a couple of judges flights were cancelled. ?? Thalia said they didn't want the stage to run too fast, so they had to take a break ... ?? ... then she checked in, sat around waiting for about 20 minutes (not a bad deal, since there was more room in the checked-in seating area than anywhere else) because apparently they were waiting for people from Stage 5. Then the kids were lined up on stage to dance ... then stood there for quite a long time. Thalia revealed that she positioned herself to dance first because she thought her feet would probably fall asleep from standing there so long.
And after all of that waiting, waiting, and more waiting, she got a 1st in that dance. So that was pretty cool.
As the day wore on several people left -- the beginners danced first, so all of them cleared out by late morning. Then it was time for lunch. We had packed a lunch, so Annabeth had time to practice on stage with some of her friends during the break.
(We think the foot movement on that photo is fun.)
And then suddenly things were whipping along. Thalia and Annabeth danced Slip Jig at the exact same time on adjacent stages -- this exact same thing happened at the An Samhra feis last year. Sort of a weird coincidence. Also, their Treble Jigs competed at the same time, although they didn't dance at the exact same time.
That's the Treble Jig lineup. Thalia is with the tall kids on the righthand stage -- she's just to the left of the girl in pink. Annabeth is with the short kids -- she's 3rd from the right of the shorties.
In the end, Thalia's had some good results, Annabeth had mediocre results, and we survived. I'm sure Graham will learn from the experience and try something different next year. I'm sure we all hope they do.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Work in Progress Wednesday
I was working on a muslin for Thalia's solo dress, and regretting the dark blue fabric, which is difficult to mark. Also, the fabric is thin and therefor has more give than a heavier fabric such as you'd actually use in a solo dress.
So I had this clever idea to use some velveteen a neighbor gave us. Except now that I'm into it, I realize that it's way too heavy, since it's upholstery velveteen. Also, the little nappy bits that are falling off all over the place are driving me nuts. Also, the color is
wrong enough to suck the joy right out of the project.
I'll be looking for some heavy white or cream fabric, and start over on this project.
Speaking of starting over, the lace collars are ugly. It finally crossed my mind that what I should've done is made a mock-up in white fabric, and use that as a template. I'm not posting pictures of what I've got so far because it might mentally scar some of the people who will be expected to eventually wear them.
On a brighter note, I started a pair of socks on our trip to Kansas City:
9-to-5 in Dream in Color Smooshy "Strange Harvest".
So I had this clever idea to use some velveteen a neighbor gave us. Except now that I'm into it, I realize that it's way too heavy, since it's upholstery velveteen. Also, the little nappy bits that are falling off all over the place are driving me nuts. Also, the color is
wrong enough to suck the joy right out of the project.
I'll be looking for some heavy white or cream fabric, and start over on this project.
Speaking of starting over, the lace collars are ugly. It finally crossed my mind that what I should've done is made a mock-up in white fabric, and use that as a template. I'm not posting pictures of what I've got so far because it might mentally scar some of the people who will be expected to eventually wear them.
On a brighter note, I started a pair of socks on our trip to Kansas City:
9-to-5 in Dream in Color Smooshy "Strange Harvest".
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Kansas City Feis
This is our third year to go to the Kansas City Feis.
In the past we've stayed at the Hyatt at the Crown Center, which is attached to the Westin which is where the feis is held. This year we stayed at a Holiday Inn a couple of miles south, mostly because we had done the "stay any 2 nights, get 1 night free", and this was our free night. Plus the Holiday Inn had a really pretty pool:
That was the view from our room. Notice how wet that pavement is? It was in the 60s and raining, so no pool time.
Instead, we headed to the Crown Center to check out what was going on there. We shopped at Gatos for our cat-related needs, then headed downstairs where we discovered
a Nathan Sawaya exhibit. We took some quick snapshots, figuring Trish could go on Saturday and take really cool pictures, since that's what Trish does. Except Trish didn't come.
It's a really cool exhibit. We highly recommend it.
Sorry some of these are blurry. We just got a new camera, and we're figuring out which settings work for what, like taking pictures of sculptures through plexiglass, for instance.
Then over to the Westin to check into the feis and check which stage was where. Also, here's the bathroom:
(We took lots and lots of pictures this trip.)
And stopped by the Sheridan's there in the Crown Center on the way out:
Back at the Holiday Inn, we hung out in the lobby/library watching tennis on the big screen television and playing Battleship. Annabeth is stretching out, getting ready for the competition.
The next morning we arrived bright and early. But the Birthday Girl was already there!
Then on to the serious business of getting ready for the feis. I put wigs on heads:
Kids put on makeup, warmed up, got dressed, generally geared up for the cut-throat competition ahead of them. Look at these two competitors, for example -- they're about to compete against each other and about 20 other girls. Can't you see the tension on their faces? Intense, isn't it.
By some miracle, Annabeth's stage WHIPPED through the competitions. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. Really. They zipped through everything and were finished by about 11:30. By which time Thalia was through about half of her dances.
So Annabeth had time to wander around Crown Center with friends (and the camera):
And still had time to get back to Thalia's stage and play around with the camera some more ....
It's against the rules to take pictures or videos of the dancers on stage
but we still manage to amuse ourselves with the camera
We didn't visit the Irish Fest this year even though the weather was absolutely perfect for it. There were performers inside the Crown Center, though. Have they done this before? I can't remember. But that was enough for us.
Overall, a great feis. Annabeth's stage ran very well. Thalia's stage was slow, and at one point they lost track of the judge (okay, really the rumor was that the judge wandered off to have a smoke or something). The organizers switched competitions to other stages as they became open, allowing competitors to finish more quickly. Most of the results for our competitions were posted almost instantaneously. We had the impression there were fewer people attending than in previous years, but maybe they were just spread out differently.
We came away with a first place and some thirds and fourths. And they gave out medals for fourth! Woohoo! Overall, I think our school did quite well. Headed home Saturday afternoon, already making plans for returning next year.
In the past we've stayed at the Hyatt at the Crown Center, which is attached to the Westin which is where the feis is held. This year we stayed at a Holiday Inn a couple of miles south, mostly because we had done the "stay any 2 nights, get 1 night free", and this was our free night. Plus the Holiday Inn had a really pretty pool:
That was the view from our room. Notice how wet that pavement is? It was in the 60s and raining, so no pool time.
Instead, we headed to the Crown Center to check out what was going on there. We shopped at Gatos for our cat-related needs, then headed downstairs where we discovered
a Nathan Sawaya exhibit. We took some quick snapshots, figuring Trish could go on Saturday and take really cool pictures, since that's what Trish does. Except Trish didn't come.
It's a really cool exhibit. We highly recommend it.
Sorry some of these are blurry. We just got a new camera, and we're figuring out which settings work for what, like taking pictures of sculptures through plexiglass, for instance.
Then over to the Westin to check into the feis and check which stage was where. Also, here's the bathroom:
(We took lots and lots of pictures this trip.)
And stopped by the Sheridan's there in the Crown Center on the way out:
Back at the Holiday Inn, we hung out in the lobby/library watching tennis on the big screen television and playing Battleship. Annabeth is stretching out, getting ready for the competition.
The next morning we arrived bright and early. But the Birthday Girl was already there!
Then on to the serious business of getting ready for the feis. I put wigs on heads:
Kids put on makeup, warmed up, got dressed, generally geared up for the cut-throat competition ahead of them. Look at these two competitors, for example -- they're about to compete against each other and about 20 other girls. Can't you see the tension on their faces? Intense, isn't it.
By some miracle, Annabeth's stage WHIPPED through the competitions. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. Really. They zipped through everything and were finished by about 11:30. By which time Thalia was through about half of her dances.
So Annabeth had time to wander around Crown Center with friends (and the camera):
And still had time to get back to Thalia's stage and play around with the camera some more ....
It's against the rules to take pictures or videos of the dancers on stage
but we still manage to amuse ourselves with the camera
We didn't visit the Irish Fest this year even though the weather was absolutely perfect for it. There were performers inside the Crown Center, though. Have they done this before? I can't remember. But that was enough for us.
Overall, a great feis. Annabeth's stage ran very well. Thalia's stage was slow, and at one point they lost track of the judge (okay, really the rumor was that the judge wandered off to have a smoke or something). The organizers switched competitions to other stages as they became open, allowing competitors to finish more quickly. Most of the results for our competitions were posted almost instantaneously. We had the impression there were fewer people attending than in previous years, but maybe they were just spread out differently.
We came away with a first place and some thirds and fourths. And they gave out medals for fourth! Woohoo! Overall, I think our school did quite well. Headed home Saturday afternoon, already making plans for returning next year.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Sewing on Lots of Little Patches
Here it is, National Sewing Month, and I've dragged the sewing machine back upstairs to the dining room table. And the first thing I've been sewing is various patches and insignia on the Girl Scout vests.
While I do this I think about scouts quite a bit. I think about the woman who murmured to me during a meeting, "They're getting rid of the badges, you know." Well, if they get rid of the badges, Annabeth is out of the program. It's as simple as that. She's in it for the badges, folks. And I don't know if they're actually getting rid of the badges or not, although I've heard that line before. I've also heard that they're NOT getting rid of the badges. And I've heard that they don't know if they're getting rid of the badges or not, they'll be figuring that out later ... presumably after they decide whether people are using that insipid Journeys program or not, or if Journeys goes the way of the Studio 2B.
I wonder if they'd give us an exit interview. Ask us why we left the program. Heaven knows they spend oodles of dollars trying to figure out what would attract new people; do they ever spend time trying to figure out why they loose current members? Eh, most people would probably either lie or only tell part of the reason, so maybe it's just as well they don't bother.
I also think about a family who has left our troop, has left Girl Scouts altogether. The mom was troop leader for a couple of years, and the daughter had good friends in the troop. Rick and I were discussing it, and said, "Oh, I guess they got too busy with other things," but really, it was more than that. Last year during cookie sales the mom had commented to me that she didn't want to support the national organization at all, and wished she could ditch the cookie sales because of it. I vaguely recall that her opinion of GSUSA went down hill as she looked through the Journeys material. And there were other factors, too.
I started pondering what an exit interview should look like. "Why did you decide to leave our organization? Choose one:" Here are some choices I'd like to see: The way the camp catalogs are laid out makes no sense. Ticked off about the Journeys programs. Realized the Back to Nature cookies taste better than the Girl Scout cookies of the same flavor, plus they're available year round. Sometimes calls to Council seem to enter an alternate reality. Decided this year's Thinking Day patch was ugly, and fell into despair about ugly patches. Couldn't figure out why we have both wings for flying up to Juniors as well as a rainbow for bridging to Juniors, and really ticked off that we have to sew both onto the vest because they're such odd shapes to sew around. Also, the iron-on stuff never really works right, so you have to sew everything on or else glue it, so let's just stop pretending these are "Iron-On".
(Brownie Try-Its are the worst for that last one -- they seem like they're ironed on nicely, but then the little corners of the triangles stick out and catch on something, and before you know it they're all popping off and people are looking at them and thinking, "that's it, I've had enough of this -- it's been one frustrating experience after another, and I've reached my limit and we're dropping out NOW.")
In the meantime, the badge program still exists, I've learned to sew everything down, and we're still planning to spend this year in Scouts. And we got a new camera, so Annabeth was running around experimenting with it while I was sewing the oddly shaped patches (Thalia will do the IPs herself since they're rectangles and relatively easy).
And I did the wings on Annabeth's new Junior vest myself. And the rainbow. I don't begrudge the wings even though they're toughest thing to sew on, because I've always thought they were wicked cool. But the rainbow? And this new flag shape? Give me a break.
While I do this I think about scouts quite a bit. I think about the woman who murmured to me during a meeting, "They're getting rid of the badges, you know." Well, if they get rid of the badges, Annabeth is out of the program. It's as simple as that. She's in it for the badges, folks. And I don't know if they're actually getting rid of the badges or not, although I've heard that line before. I've also heard that they're NOT getting rid of the badges. And I've heard that they don't know if they're getting rid of the badges or not, they'll be figuring that out later ... presumably after they decide whether people are using that insipid Journeys program or not, or if Journeys goes the way of the Studio 2B.
I wonder if they'd give us an exit interview. Ask us why we left the program. Heaven knows they spend oodles of dollars trying to figure out what would attract new people; do they ever spend time trying to figure out why they loose current members? Eh, most people would probably either lie or only tell part of the reason, so maybe it's just as well they don't bother.
I also think about a family who has left our troop, has left Girl Scouts altogether. The mom was troop leader for a couple of years, and the daughter had good friends in the troop. Rick and I were discussing it, and said, "Oh, I guess they got too busy with other things," but really, it was more than that. Last year during cookie sales the mom had commented to me that she didn't want to support the national organization at all, and wished she could ditch the cookie sales because of it. I vaguely recall that her opinion of GSUSA went down hill as she looked through the Journeys material. And there were other factors, too.
I started pondering what an exit interview should look like. "Why did you decide to leave our organization? Choose one:" Here are some choices I'd like to see: The way the camp catalogs are laid out makes no sense. Ticked off about the Journeys programs. Realized the Back to Nature cookies taste better than the Girl Scout cookies of the same flavor, plus they're available year round. Sometimes calls to Council seem to enter an alternate reality. Decided this year's Thinking Day patch was ugly, and fell into despair about ugly patches. Couldn't figure out why we have both wings for flying up to Juniors as well as a rainbow for bridging to Juniors, and really ticked off that we have to sew both onto the vest because they're such odd shapes to sew around. Also, the iron-on stuff never really works right, so you have to sew everything on or else glue it, so let's just stop pretending these are "Iron-On".
(Brownie Try-Its are the worst for that last one -- they seem like they're ironed on nicely, but then the little corners of the triangles stick out and catch on something, and before you know it they're all popping off and people are looking at them and thinking, "that's it, I've had enough of this -- it's been one frustrating experience after another, and I've reached my limit and we're dropping out NOW.")
In the meantime, the badge program still exists, I've learned to sew everything down, and we're still planning to spend this year in Scouts. And we got a new camera, so Annabeth was running around experimenting with it while I was sewing the oddly shaped patches (Thalia will do the IPs herself since they're rectangles and relatively easy).
And I did the wings on Annabeth's new Junior vest myself. And the rainbow. I don't begrudge the wings even though they're toughest thing to sew on, because I've always thought they were wicked cool. But the rainbow? And this new flag shape? Give me a break.
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