Dixie's Dragon

Fuscous

Today's word is truly icky, reminds me of nose type icky things:

fuscous (FUS-kuhs) adjective

   Of a brownish-gray color; dusky.

[From Latin fuscus (dusky).]

I am watching my white cat vigorously knead an unfelted handbag and am glad that it will be felted. Never fear back tack buddy, it was not your bag, though I have been working endlessly on it and hopefully will finish the brunt of it today.

Since Delaney is now in kindergarten, I have been emphasizing the need for her to put her things away in her room properly. So, I have been very frustrated with finding one of these in various spots around the house for the past few days.

Just one here and just one there, and each time I find one I swear to myself that I just put them in Delaney's closet. Well, the mystery is solved. The culprit is my ex-racing greyhound. He has a penchant for white fuzzy bunnies, go figure. He also exhibits an embarrassing fondness for chasing small white fuzzy dogs at the dog park. So, he has been snatching up a bunny slipper here and there and reminiscing of his glory days of racing. Here he is with his blanky on his very own chaise lounge in our bedroom resting after the chase.

I bought this pizza sauce simply because I liked the can. Cute, no? (Can you tell that I am avoiding crafty endeavors? I have been working and backtacking so this is the best I can come up with.)

Filemot

filemot (FIL-mot) noun, adjective    The color of a dead or faded leaf: dull brown or yellowish brown.

Wordsmith is featuring words regarding colors this week, so I am simply passing them through. This one was entirely new to me, however, I plan on using it today in the yarn shop.

My spunky little five year old delights herself with taking myriad photos with our digital camera so that each morning I find photo surprises when I unload the photo card. She is actually quite good and has been able to take the most surprising photos of mundane items. I never thought that a bag of bagel chips could look so appetizing:

I was reminded with this photo that I found the sweetest over sized napkin at the grocery yesterday that I want to turn into my Thanksgiving apron. If I could only find some filemot cotton twill tape for the tie.

A few weeks ago Toni from Creative Ma sent me some beautiful ribbon. Yesterday, I decided to perk up one of my long sleeve black tees.  One does need a hint of color (remember that line from the Bird Cage?). I decided to put it on this morning and take a photo of it, satisfying the body part obligation for Self Portrait Tuesday and displaying my handiwork.  It is a little hard to get a ribbon embellished sleeve when you have hands as large as mine, but that is the price for beauty.

Blue Monday

Today is very rainy and dreary a la Rita. A perfect day for indoor crafting. But, first, a run down of my wonderful weekend. Friday was our 7th anniversary of meeting each other (which has always seemed more important to us that the day we actually married) and I received a lovely new dryer as my very romantical anniversary gift. The dryer delivery man was extremely amused by my husband's choice of a gift, me, I am just pleased.

Saturday we made a family trek to the Starvation Army and snagged some great books. I am a fool for old cookbooks, especially ones with pictures so I had to buy the 1969 version of Great Dinners from Life. It's full of those 60ish staged food photos. Being a salt lover I found this one particularly enticing:

The next book we found wins the prize for the most astounding Starvation Army find ($3.99). How could anyone give away a treasure such as this? The Golden Crescent, a collection of stories by Bob Brister and paintings by Jack Cowan, 1969. This is a first edition signed by both the author and illustrator. Oddly enough this book features hunting stories from the area that was just devastated by Katrina. A sampling of the lovely water colors within:

Can you imagine throwing this book out? Not me.

I picked up the Vogue Knitting, accessorize book for $2.59: it's full of hats and scarves and such. This one belongs on You knit what?? . It would be bad enough on a normal size head, so imagine if I were to put it on my enormous King Kong jug head. 

My friend April stopped by on Saturday for show and tell. When April enters the eBay site, the theme song from Rocky starts playing. You name it and she has bought it on eBay. She recently procured (correct me if my poundage is wrong, April) something like 300 pounds of fabric from the widower of a fabric collector. She gifted me with this incredible piece of canvas. Normally I am not a duck/hunting scene type of gal but these colors are amazing.

This fabric, which in my household we would describe as kooky-fruity was also a gift.

I worked laboriously on my back-tack project this weekend, but cannot show the fruits of my labor.
I am a fool for all these wonderful swaps, I just signed up for the Christmas stocking swap hosted by Daily Parcels which will keep me busy after I finish up the Vintage Swap and Back TackII.

Does anyone know of a site from which one can order Japanese linen tape and zakka craft items?

Word of the day:backronym

Today's word was provided by Wordsmith:

backronym (BAK-ro-nim) noun

   A word re-interpreted as an acronym.

[Compound of back + acronym.]

In a backronym, an expansion is invented to treat an existing word as an acronym. An example is the PERL programming language whose name is now explained as an acronym of Practical Extraction and Report Language.

When naming, sometimes a suitable name is chosen and then an acronym is retrofitted on top of it: USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism). The clunkiness of the expansion is a quick giveaway. How about forming a backronym for ACRONYM itself: A Contrived Result Of Nomenclature Yielding Mechanism?

I have been quite industrious in the past few days, so much so that I did not want to slow down to blog. Plus, I had some business to attend to. My latest infatuation is beading and I cranked out a good many interesting necklaces this weekend. I had planned a big photo shoot so that I could post pics of them all today, but this is what was going on during my photo shoot:

That is Marlow, a.k.a. "Peep" since he trounces around making odd peep-like noises. Like most orange cats he is tres affectionate (currently he is sitting next to my keyboard nudging me and poking at the screen. Our other orange cat, Chester Polyester, went missing for two nights, this just after a neighbor stopped by to say she saw a coyote in our front yard. My trusty husband sent out an All Points Bulletin to our neighborhood email list and shortly thereafter, I got a call.

Mrs. Weatherly: "Does your orange cat have white feet?"
Dixie" "Yes"
Mrs. W" "Well, he's under my bed."

When I arrived to collect my erstwhile feline he was happily mincing around Mrs. W's living room. Chester is now home safe and sound napping happily under the bird feeder. I digress, back to my beading. The net result of my ill fated photo shoot was one decent picture. I will post more later when I have some help from another human.

As you will see, my vintage buttons are serving a wonderful purpose these days. This button was one of my all time favorites and seemed to go perfectly with these polka dotted beads. I have been sporting some of my creations about and two of my neighbors insisted that I make some more and sell them, and so I shall. More pictures tomorrow.

I snagged a ton of booty at my new favorite store: Kmart. Martha has some lovely vintage-esque tea towels out this fall. I would post them, but some are going in secret gifty packages and I don't want to give away the surprise any more than I already have.

I am off to try to use backronym. I get to visit with my good pal Ruth today, who also happens to be one of the smartest people I know (can you say uber mensa?) and surely I can pop it in to casual conversation and impress her. Probably not, since we just like to gossip.

I almost forgot self portrait Tuesday. I take horridly  horrific pictures. Truly, I am the most unphotogenic person I know.  As one vendor said when checking my i.d., "Geez, what did they do, come sit you up in bed and take your picture?" Anyhoo, here I am with many body parts showing. This is one of those unpresentable pictures from my jewelry photo shoot - I was trying to keep my straggly hair out of the picture and came up with this slightly fuzzy shot.

words, glorious words

My very thoughtful Vintage Swap partner Linda provided me with this wonderful list of words via the Washington Post.  This may be difficult to use in context, but I shall try try try. thank you Linda!

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take
any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing
one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the 2005 winners:

1.  Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject
financially impotent for an indefinite period.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you
realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign
of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting
laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who
doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

12. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really
bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a
serious bummer.

13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming
only things that are good for you.

14. Glibido: All talk and no action.

15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they
come at you rapidly.

16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've
accidentally walked through a spider web.

17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your
bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the
fruit you're eating.

new hobby goin on

I'm what you might call a white (or black) t-shirt girl in that I am the most comfortable when wearing a non-descript t-shirt. That said, one must appropriately accessorize when being a simple dresser. Here is my most recent cure for the plain t-shirt blues:

                                           

I used one of my favorite new vintage beads for the clasp and was rather pleased with the end result, so much so that I have several new projects started.

word of the day: Skein

skein (skayn) noun

   1. A length of yarn wound around a reel.

   2. A flock of geese, ducks, or other similar birds in flight.

   3. Something suggesting complex twists and tangles.

[From Middle English skeyine, from Old French escaigne.]

When in flight, geese are called a skein; when not in flight, a gaggle; and when flying in a V formation, they are referred to as a wedge. Ducks take a number of terms too: while in water, they are called a paddling.

I have been up to crafty things despite my last few posts. For my friend Christa's birthday, I made a devil's food cake with a chocolate ganache middle and topped the whole thing of with marshmallow icing. Delaney stepped in and added her version of elegant decorative touches:

In my opinion nothing tops a devil's food cake better than marshmallow icing. The recipe that I used was discovered by my husband. His theory is that the owner's manuals that come with appliances have the best recipes since they have been tested multitudinous times. In this case his hypothesis proved correct, page 44 of the kitchen-aid standing mixer owner's manual "fluffy white icing" has proven unsurpassed.

I also knitted Christa a shrug out of shimmer off white and baby alpaca in a taupy beige color. You can see Chester below trying to make off with it to parts unknown. Never fear Christa I rescued it.
                                                

I have been busy trying to finish a felted checker board pattern purse in the colors of the season (aqua and coffee) so that I can begin my back tack 2 project. I have assembled all the raw materials required and am chomping at the bit to get going.

One panel of Raquel's bag:

               

Self portrait tuesday

body parts, hmmmmm. That's the theme this month. There are not many of my body parts that I want shown out of context. I do like my arms because they are the strongest part of me. They can hoist with the best of them, and made me very popular with an ex boyfriend who always needed help chopping wood. My husband who is also gifted with extremely strong arms used to beat unsuspecting French pub patrons at arm wrestling. Beaten by a skinny American college boy?, NON. With her genome pool our daughter is surely destined for great feats of strength.

The winery in my house

I really do have several craft projects to post and a new word of the day, but, I thought that my husband deserved a little spotlight first. Over the past year Shaun has been experimenting with making wine in our downstairs kitchen, he is now as he says, in full production mode. He bottled two new vats this weekend:

The labels are of his own design. He is very talented, no? and believe it or not, the wine is quite good. He has been purchasing grape juice from Yam Hill winery in Oregon and we have been pleased with all of his wines thus far. Our wine cellar is full to the brim, but that never lasts long does it?

felted bag or sherpa hat?

Remember that bag that I made for my pal Ruth? Well, it's much more than a bag...

Word of the day: horripilate

Horripilate: to break out in goose bumps due to being cold.
In context: When Martha changed from her greige cashmere sweater set into the bright orange coveralls she began to horripilate abundantly.

Here is my morbid but beautiful collection of butterfly road kill that I have collected on my neighborhood runs. They were just too pretty to leave by the side of the road.

Another happy day at the Carrigan house. I received a package from Acme Notions which included lots of goodies for my vintage swap partner Linda as well as a few happys for me, including this easy sew apron pattern for Delaney. Realizing that it is not the real thing, I still think that it is precious and Delaney will love it.

My Happy Mango beads also arrived. Juju's
new book has been a great inspiration and hopefully these beads will become lovely pieces of jewelry. I've been slogging through a top down sweater and once I have made substantial progress (typically sub.progress is achieved when the temptation to work with a new set of colors is too great), I'm switching to beading. Can you blame me when you see these?

Word of the day: greige

greige

• noun [mass noun] a colour between beige and grey.

— origin blend of grey and beige, perhaps influenced by French grège ‘raw (silk)’. This word was taken from Askoxford.com in the "new word" category. In context: "When Martha arrived in her prison cell, she discovered that it was the most delightful greige."

Perhaps today's word should be jaunty given the topic. On Monday, which was a holiday here in the U.S., we went to a cookout at our friend Lynn's house. Lynn's house is a fascinating place, full of odd collections: mardi gras masks, typewriters, photographs taken by Lynn in Vietnam. He also had the wonderful luck of having a quite stylish aunt who left him her vast collection of costume jewelry. Being the most accomodating host, Lynn brought it out for the ladies to play with. Digging through that box with three of my friends and Delaney and playing dress up was the most fun I've had in a long time. We put on a fashion show for the boys who were busy on the other end of the entertainment spectrum smoking cigars and drinking brandy. Rather than describe the contents of the jewelry box, I submit this picture:

word of the day: autumnal

Autumnal: adj., the months of September, October and November, or as reckoned astronomically extending from the September equinox to the December solstice.

I always thought this word sounded like some mysterious working component of a funeral home. Anyhow, thank goodness there is an autumnal feel to the air after all these weeks of 100 plus weather.

Yesterday I found out that Linda of Daisy Dinosaur is my Vintage swap partner. When cruising her blog to discover more about her to facilitate my accumulating appropriate vintage goodies, I saw the sweetest softie made from her baby's jacket here . I see a future for some of those ridiculously tight clothes of Delaney's that she refuses to give up. Smart mom that Linda.

word of the day: disambiguate

Jane's Friday post reminded me of a game that Cindy, my late college roommate, and I developed all those years ago. You see Jane had looked up the word "quince" in the dictionary and discovered that it was described as "globose" (what a fabulous word). Cindy and I would select a quirky word and post it with definition on the outside of our dorm door. Anyone who read the word was required to use it five times in context during the day - we had quite the fan base of big haired 80's era undergrads walking about using odd words such as "hobnob" (socialize or pal around).

Anyhoo, I have decided to resurrect the game and today's word is disambiguate. My husband used that word to describe me. He said that lawyers were always trying to disambiguate themselves so their writing sounds stilted and boring.

Now on to more colorful things. Friday was a big mail day here. First I got a nice fat envelope from Toni with these goodies tucked inside:

I had no idea that Aunt Martha existed, but apparently she produces oodles of vintage iron transfers. Thank you Toni!

Believe it or not, there are those who want to purchase one of my felted bags. (currently I have four orders). My favorite felting yarn is Lamb's pride bulky weight. Since I depleted Angel Hair's supply, I order a box of various luscious colors from Kaleidoscope Yarns.  Like the ribbons I have received earlier this week, I have enjoyed looking at them in their unused form en masse:



Perhaps, I will start with a seafoam and chocolate brown bag. Yum.

Friday night Shaun and I had the pleasure of hosting our gourmet club's dinner. The theme was Indian food and it was scrumptious. I have coined our club "the rowdy table" because, simply, that it what we are. Oh we eat well, but lots of wine is consumed and tomfoolery abounds. Our friend Kate who is a fantastic chef also happens to be a vintage button collector and expert. I asked if she wanted to poke through my recent eBay booty and she happily agreed. Apparently you can tell a lot about a button by tapping it against your teeth. Kate not only tapped a few, but was able to tell us how many of the buttons were made and the decade from which they emanated. Here is the expert at work:


Kate just returned from a vintage button convention in California with more buttons for her massive collection (which hopefully will appear in part on this blog in the near future).

I have several knitting projects working in tandem, a cotton sweater and plush shrug, but couldn't resist buying this yarn to be used for a shawl or shrug with a pattern of  YO and K2TOG.

I will close with a photo of one of the most lovely and edible things that i have ever seen. At first I thought it was porcelain, but it's chocolate and available at Dean & Deluca.

 

toys and tortoise

This yummy bundle of ribbons arrived yesterday. I wondered how they would be packaged and they arrived in these tidy little coils. These are to be used in episode 4 of the Raquel and Dixie crafting series which hopefully will result in some belts and embellished tshirts. (Last week was series 3 - experimentation with cheap ribbon).

          

 

 

 

 

    We often have visitors around the bird feeder in our very wooded back yard, which is the slope of a steep ridge. Last month a wild turkey showed up. This morning, to our delight was a box tortoise. Shaun picked him up to show Delaney and he immediately withdrew his head and legs into his shell. It occurred to me that many poor souls in New Orleans would enjoy the accoutrements of a box tortoise and could simply withdraw into a cozy shell protected from the chaos and disaster.

I have so much enjoyed learning to knit and making new knitting friends. Here is one of my new knitting pals, Liberty, the BEST knitting teacher EVER who instilled in me the confidence to master double pointed needles on my second Knitted project. If you are  in the Nashville area and interested in lessons you should seek her out at Angel Hair.

oh happy day

Despite the fact that my goofy mailman wears a surgical mask reminiscent of Michael Jackson when delivering the mail, I am beginning to like the guy. Today he brought me the new John Prine disc: fair and square. In my humble opinion (and many others) he is a poet and lyricist of the greatest proportions. If you have not heard him, get thee to amazon and buy his new disc. You will be pleased, I promise. john prine

He also brought me Juju's delightful new book:

So here I sit listening to John Prine looking at my beautiful new book with my kitten purring on my lap - does life get much better? ahhh simple pleasures.