Fire and Ice

If variety is the spice of life, my job is providing a pretty spicy ride. All universities provide an array of diverse wonders on a regular basis, but not everyone working there has quite the E ticket that I do—it is my job to document such things.

So today, dressed like a Christmas cupcake in red velour pants and a Christmas sweater covered in happy little snowmen, I entered the extremely blokey underworld that is the sculpture room where metals are cast. Armed with my glorified point-n-shoot like some kind of hybrid between Martha Stewart and Persephone, I took pictures of the process involved in casting bronze statues. Three men completely covered in safety gear like welding masks, leather aprons and footwear only a vulcanologist could love hefted the molten bronze in crucibles glowing orange as lava. The mold is preheated to 1000 degrees so it won’t shatter as the liquid metal is poured.

My cheeks were still glowing from the heat as I snapped up my down jacket and headed back through the snow to my office through an unsuspecting campus devoid of students at the end of the term.

First Christmas

Yesterday our local pet supply place had free pictures with Santa. I was washing Laddie there (can you tell he’s still a bit damp?) and swear I am not enough of a crazed pet owner to have made a special trip for a Santa photo, but I am glad to have this cute shot. Amazing how much a creature can grow in less than six months. The tornado has become a wonderful family member with a very agreeable disposition.

He enjoys the snow in such a direct fashion (face first, shake off later) that you have to laugh.

One day long ago I started, with great energy, to explain something to my grandmother. She was about 80 at the time. I don’t remember what it was I thought so important to explain, but I do remember her reaction. She stopped me abruptly and said, “I don’t want to learn anything else, unless it is a card game.” As a fairly enthusiastic student of everything, I was appalled.

Yesterday, I offered to teach someone at work how to do something and she declined.

All I could think was, “Please God, never let that attitude overtake me.” The appendices to that prayer include, “may the higher end magazines never dumb themselves down to capture the beginner market (they have plenty)” and “may there always be classes and books teaching techniques I haven’t tried” and “may at least one new gadget or fiber or dye come out each year”.

Enough for Cocktail Parties

Another quilt (called A Rose By Any Other Name) with no relation to this post.

My English teacher in my senior year of high school made us all learn to recite the first 3 lines of Beowulf in old English. He insisted that one need learn no more than that to get by at cocktail parties. This gave me a rather strange notion of what adults were up to at these functions. But he wasn't done-- my teacher allowed us the additional wickedness of "making it up after that because nobody would know."

It was, in a sense, license to dabble, to get the first steps right and then improvise, to join the club legitimately and then break its rules.

I can still quote those lines and it gave me a sort of relationship to that text that has me reading it again now.

And come to think of it, there probably is a relationship between that quilt and this post...

Blessed are the Well Timed Teachers

A translinear edition of Dante’s Inferno given to me by my Latin teacher at the end of my senior year in high school now has pride of place on a shelf in my office at work. It reminds me of both the value of hard earned abilities and of teachers who appeared in one’s life story at just the right moment for maximum benefit.

Another such teacher is now my boss. That’s a rare twist on this theme, but I certainly benefit from finding a way to keep the lessons coming long after college.

At the little quilt group at the university where I now work, I recently did a demonstration that was more of a glorified show-n-tell. I gathered up the finished products and the various constituent parts of two classes I took a few years ago in Australia from Chrissy Sheed and Susan Matthews. I wasn’t teaching other teacher’s techniques (I don’t do that without expressed permission) so much as letting our group have a close look and feel and a chat about ways to extend the possibilities. It’s nice to honor the gift one has received from one’s teachers.

Eventually, I’ll be teaching as part of my job, though only once every couple years. I’m looking forward to making peace with some new pedagogical directions that are now all the rage and will have the enormous luxury of reflection between teaching stints. I’m also a dozen years older, so I’ll bringing different tools to the task this time. Here’s hoping I’ll be well timed for somebody.

Where the heck have I been?

If you were wondering why no blogging has gone on since July 25, well, the answer is to the left. Better photos will come, but he's a very wiggly subject.

Laddie is the 9 week old blond tornado (Golden retriever) who came into our lives 10 days ago. He's sleeping through the night 2 out of 3 times now so normal life can resume. He's quickly becoming a family member and is part of everything--including phone calls. I phone my 9 year old son at midday from work and our conversation is punctuated by forceful exclamations of "off" when my son's toes are being attacked.

I did sew the back for my "inspired by Gee's Bend" challenge which is due by 23 August. Getting that quilted by next Thursday may be a bridge too far!

I did see a magazine cover with a foundation pieced Golden Retriever puppy on that. Now that seems relevant!

Before is My After

I’ve recently moved into our new home, a 50 year old house which does a good job of the nice features of older houses (like woodwork, arches and coved ceilings) while having a lot of the nice points of newer homes. Now I have the aforementioned studio. The cardboard boxes are empty and have been removed so now I have a lot of stacked plastic boxes holding my stash and tools.

The general plan is to preserve one wall as a design wall and then to make good use of the rest of the space—I’m tall so vertical is good. A few months ago, I acquired two long tables which are arranged in an L in one corner. Monday I got a snap-together very rugged 5 shelf unit that will hold the majority of my stash. All this stuff is hefty plastic—not one’s dream sewing room, but cost effective and useful in a garage or basement should I ever find myself in the position to upgrade some day to purpose built tables and cabinets.

As if to rub my nose in it, I saw a makeover of a sewing room in a recent magazine and the “before” table is just like mine! But then again, their “after” look seemed entirely impractical to me. One must have priorities!

Oh, and a tip: if you have large amounts of miscellaneous batting (wadding), get a huge vacuum storage bag and shrink it right down for storage.