Joyce Makes Art

The Great Chipmunk Adventure

The Judge and I got home from a weekend away, ready for a day of soccer and settling back in.  Instead, we got this.

Yes, that was a brief glimpse of a chipmunk that Harry, the always perky Maine Coon Cat, brought inside to express his displeasure over our absence.  Unfortunately, the chippy didn't have the good sense to scurry out the open door.  Instead, it hid behind some shelving and ran around in the room.

and then ACK!!! (well, you saw the end of that one)

The chipmunk spent a good bit of time hiding in various places, including the incredible discovery of a chipmunk-sized space beneath a stack of cds.

Bob failed to seize the moment, but fortunately (and yet another reason I love my iphone), I stopped helping him chase the chippy and started shooting video, much to his disgust.

Finally, we cleverly convinced the chipmunk to climb into our cornucopia, which had been hastily liberated from its dining room table display.  We all ran out front with it (hence the Blair Witch Project like quality of this video), and got the chippy to jump out.  Immediately, one of Harry's co-conspirators, Dragon, seized the poor little thing in her jaws and tried to run off with it.  

Success!  We were able to liberate the chippy and our last glimpse was of it scampering up a tree.  I feel sure it will have better sense than to come anywhere near our house, ever again!

Everyone Needs A Lovey

Everyone in our house has a favorite, cherished object that is their lovey (I'm including the Judge in this, because that man really cherishes his TV clicker in an unnatural way).  But this is a new one.  That would be Harry, my darling Maine Coon Cat, who discovered my stash of Selma Jubilee Sock Yarn, waiting to be wound into balls so I could take it along on spring break.

He doesn't usually get to break into my personal stash of yarn, but I left two skeins sitting on the dining room table in a bowl so I could wind them, and discovered sweet Harry, all curled up in a little kitty cat fetal position, snuggling with some Jubilee.

Sweet kitty!  I'll have to knit him his very own little toy if I have any of this yarn left over.

Where we are today

Chili cook off in support of the exceptional childrens' foundation. Just one of the many reasons I love living in Birmingham.

Baby Friendly Wool

Despite wool's reputation for being somewhat scratchy, all four of my children have worn it over their (cloth) diapers with great success.  My youngest still refuses to give his up and wears has last toddler sized pair of long pants as capris.  Wool is stretchy and fits for a looooong time like that.

Although I haven't knit baby wool for a long time, I've got a newly pregnant friend who is considering using cloth diapers, so I decided to encourage her along by knitting some "longies" to go over diapers for autumn baby.

This is the top -- you can see the ribbing at the waist, where I put in an eyelet row for a ribbon tie although the ribbing alone will be stretchy enough to hold the pants on.  I've just finished putting in a gusset for the crotch and am about to split for the legs and knit them on down.

This is some of my own yarn, called "Sunshine."  Sadly, it's one of those playing-in-the-studio-without-taking-notes colors, which I did for fun in this Blue Faced Leicester and in some Seacell/Merino blend  Sea Wool as well.

I couldn't resist pulling one skein out to knit these longies with and I think I'm going to have to spend some time trying to figure out just how I did this one.

An Unusual Dinner

We have post-grandma holiday visit syndrome in our house.

Grandma bakes with children -- one kind of funky new cookie each day for the first three days she was here.  Meatloaf.  A meatloaf so good the kids ate thirds.  No one cooks quite like Grandma.  And no one is as good at letting kids do things Mom is usually in too much of a hurry to slow down and let them do.

So this afternoon, we slowed down.  Ellie wanted to bake.  Cake is something of a no-no in our household because our littlest one is allergic to wheat, but I told her we would make one.  I pulled out one of my favorite baking cookbooks, Butter, Sugar, Flour and Eggs.  A recipe I had never noticed before jumped out at me:  Vanilla Souffles with Chocolate Sauce.  We had all the ingredients (thank you for those wonderful bars of chocolate, Ann!)

Aren't they pretty?

The Judge helped Ellie pour the chocolate sauce on.

And, here's the best part.  We ate them for dinner.

Yum.  Official New Years Diet starts, um, tomorrow.  Or maybe Monday.  I'm off to see what other recipes I haven't noticed before.

One Last Proud Mommy Post

If y'all will stand it, I have to make one last proud mommy post.  My baby premiered in the Nutcracker Friday night.  We're now three days into the run of the ballet, and everything is going beautifully.  She is lovely in the role, and it has been worth all of her hard work and effort.  She seems to be enjoying herself immensely.

In a week or so, I'll be back to my normal schedule of mom-ing, working, and arts & crafting.  But, for the next little bit, I'm still a proud ballet mama.

Here is a back stage picture from tonight, and I've just had to cut and paste the entire review from opening night for y'all to see, since it mentions Ellie.

Alabama Ballet's Nutcracker performance a triumph for children of every age

Sunday, December 14, 2008

MICHAEL HUEBNER

News staff writer

In a December plagued by financial bailouts and unstable markets, there's solace in the unbroken patterns of holiday tradition. Since 2002, Alabama Ballet has milked that comfort zone with George Balanchine's exquisite choreography for "The Nutcracker," but this year's production, which opened Friday at Samford University's Wright Center, had an extra dose of childlike escape from hard times.

The return of the Alabama Symphony after a year of recorded music had a lot to do with it. The pre-concert wonderment of curious children peering into the orchestra pit was likely enough to spark the interest of future artists.

Never mind that only 33 musicians can crowd into the pit to play a reduced score of Tchaikovsky's music, or that the amplification detracted from their naturalness. Under conductor Les Fillmer's able guidance, all seemed well again.

On stage, even the tedium of the Act 1 narrative seemed more bearable than usual. Roger Van Fleteren played a playful, grandfatherly Drosselmeier. The mice in the battle scene seemed scarier. The children's cast was sharp, especially Ellie Vance's well-acted portrayal of Marie.

Jinsong Gao chimed in with a fine violin solo in the "Sleeping Beauty" excerpt. The snow scene was enchantingly danced by an ensemble of 16, as snow fell profusely - sometimes in clumps - on stage and in the audience.

The best dance is reserved for Act 2, capped in this performance by Tatiana Ledovskikh. First exhibiting her grace, strength and elegance in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, she twisted, turned, then threw herself into the capable arms of Cavalier Matthew Prescott with seamless, silken glides.

Chinatsu Owada was a sensuous "Coffee." Kathryn Gebler, always a striking presence, led a well-trained bouquet of 14 flowers in the famous waltz.

This is a disciplined, well-trained company doing the best "Nutcracker" there is. Dance aficionado or not, you owe it to your inner child to see it.

How Six Looks

This is how six looks.

But he'll always be my baby!  (The one in the green pants)

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart.

Why I haven't been knitting.

Happy Thanksgiving (a day late). We seem to be celebrating by going from starbucks to starbucks.

Happy Halloween

We had a house full of wee ghouls for Halloween and lots of fun.  Although the boys were content spending a happy forty-five minutes walking up and down our street, collecting candy, before they came back to the house to count and share; the girls took their dads all over the neighborhood for hours.  I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of their pained faces when they made it home!

Here are my own two -- a ninja and a dark angel.

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

So We're Off....

The boy and I are off and looking forward to seeing a few New England colleges.  I'm also really looking forward to seeing the child who has already flown the nest and is going to school up there and meeting with his teachers and caregivers.

Hopefully if you are reading this, I am happily knitting away while we fly.

I'm going to start with arm two of the Manos Silk Shrug.  Here is the first arm -- the arm that would not end.

I am not making this up -- the more I knit, the shorter it gone.  It was incredible.  And the full arm is actually bigger than the fronts of the shrug, combined.  Just miles of stockinette with not a lot of interest, even at the decreases and shaping, but it is really pretty.  So on to arm two.

In the meantime, I lost the last two balls of this yarn and ran out yesterday to replace them.  Then, I promptly found the time I thought were lost.  This yarn is so pretty that I'm hoping I will have enough left over to do a little shrug called Miho for Ellie to wear at ballet rehearsals. 

The Barn Raising knit quilt I mentioned in my last post really took over in my imagination, and I quickly skeined up some sock yarn I have been hoarding for some time -- not quite enough for a pair of socks but perfect for this quilt -- to take along.  This is my Nadia colorway.

I also dyed up a couple of ounces of another colorway I want to include in the quilt to take along and can't wait to see how the squares look.

Finally, I can't resist showing you how the mohair yarn from yesterday, the yarn I'm going to use with the handspun coiled yarn for my scarf, looks after winding.  It's so pretty.  It is all the colors in my little cottage garden right now.

It has been so hard deciding what to take along on this trip.  I'm anticipating lots of time to knit while in meetings and such.  Even walking out the door, it occurred to me that there was the cardigan I wanted to start for Ollie....  Patience is the lesson I continue to learn from knitting, but I still wish there was more time!