Incoherent Scribblings

Finishes!

Today I did some finishing!
First up was “Tempest.” I bought a silver frame for him a few days after I finished him and today I got around to putting him in it. I had to do it twice because on the first go-round I cut the backing cardboard too small and as a result he was too small for the frame. The second time was a charm though and he is now hanging on my “Stitching Wall of Fame.”

Second up was a piece that I stitched back in June of last year. Most of you are probably familiar with this piece if you have visited the Stitching Blogger’s Question Homepage because it graces it. “Friends are like a Patchwork Quilt” is from the March 1993 issue of Cross Stitch Plus.

Apparently, my mom tried to cross stitch during my freshman year of college (1992-93). I knew that she stitched a “Sisters” piece for my aunt about that time, but until I started stitching in 1999 and she gave me half a dozen Cross Stitch Plus magazines I never knew she gave stitching much of a chance.

Anyway, as I said, I stitched “Friends” last summer and though I originally thought I might frame it, I never got around to buying a frame for it so it just sat in my “to be finished” drawer.

As I mentioned yesterday, I signed up for a couple of exchanges over at the Stitching Bloggers’ Exchange Board; one of which is a needleroll exchange. I have always thought needlerolls were cute, but had never done one, so I decided before I make my needleroll for my exchange partner, I better try my hand at making one first. That way if I was a miserable failure I could drop the exchange before the names were paired up.
Enter “Friends are like a Patchwork Quilt.” I decided that I should try and finish something I had already done into a needleroll and thought that the “Friends” design was a good candidate. And so I spent today learning how to make a needleroll using Jill Robinson’s “Needleroll Finishing Instructions.”

I started by pulling the necessary threads (even though I only counted 12 instead of 24 because the fabric of “Friends” wasn’t as long as would have been ideal) and then I set up my sewing machine and learned how to sew a “French Seam.”

I then finished off the edges with a hem seam. The hem seam was another learning experience for me, as I had never done them before either. (I found some nifty diagrams of a bunch of needlework stitches here.) I have to say that I absolutely loved the hem seam!! However, once again I deviated from Robinson’s instructions because instead of doing my hem seam with two threads, I did them with four. Robinson mentions that this gives a lacy effect… and it does, but the main reason I did them this way was because I figured since it was less stitches it would also be faster.

After I finished up the hem seams I threaded the ribbon through the pulled threads, stuffed my needleroll, and tied everything up. It turned out awesome! (IMHO)
As is the norm for me, after completing this first needleroll I now know what I will do differently next time, but otherwise I am now officially in love with needlerolls and am looking forward to the needleroll exchange!

Banned Books

I have been seeing this “Booking Through Thursday” meme floating around on some of the blogs I read and since I am a librarian after all and I do like to read, I thought maybe I would give it a go now and again. As I usually do when it comes to these meme-thingies, I am posting late, but as I have said before, this is my blog and I will post what I want, when I want!

Anyway, on to “Booking Through Thursday,” brought to you this week on Saturday. The questions this week focus on a subject near and dear to my heart: banned books.

Unfortunately, even in America, books are often challenged and sometimes even banned. In library terms, a challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials from the curriculum or library, based upon the objections of a person or group, thereby restricting the access of others. A banning is the successful removal of those materials. Books usually are challenged with the best intentions—to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.

However, librarians believe that “[t]he freedom to read is essential to our democracy” and therefore “[it is necessary to] uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.”

Celebrate freedom! Read a banned book today.

Here are a few examples of books that have at one point or another been banned in the United States: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, and Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

And now for the questions!

Have you read any of the books I listed above?
Actually, I have read them all. Not only am I a librarian, I was an English major in college!

Have you ever knowingly read a banned book?
I have never read a book just because it was banned. However, given my background in literature and librarianship, I tend to know if a book has been challenged and/or banned when I read it.

Knowing that the above books have been banned, would you read them now? Why?
As I said, I have already read them all. However, I took a quick look at ALA’s 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1999-2000 and the top 3 were Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz, Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. I have read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou, but not the others. I would read them because I would like to know what the fuss is about and because my professional ethics would never allow me to pass judgment on a book one way or another without reading it first.

My First Wedding

(This post was inspired by the Friday Fiver, LJ’s Original Friday Meme.)

A couple of weeks ago, my mom had her 35 year high school reunion. At the reunion she saw a lot of her old classmates, including my first grade teacher, Miss Wright. Miss Wright didn’t go to school with Mom and is actually a few years younger, but she married a guy from my mom’s class.

Miss Wright is now “Mrs. D.” and has been teaching for over 20 years (I think my class was the first or second class she taught), but she still remembers my class.

I often wonder if she remembers us because she invited my whole class to her wedding. (Remember that I come from a very small town, so when I say that Miss Wright invited the whole class to her wedding, it wasn’t a big deal: After all, there were only 16 of us!) Of the 16 of us, there were 7 girls and 9 boys and for whatever reason, only the girls went actually went to Miss Wright’s wedding.

Miss Wright’s wedding was the first wedding that I ever went to and I remember how honored I was that I had been invited. I can’t remember where the wedding took place, but I remember that the girls from my class all went as a group with a couple of the moms and we got to stay in a hotel!

Miss Wright had a June wedding, so I would have just turned 7 and it was probably the first time I spent the night away from home, so you can imagine how excited I was: My mom didn’t go as a chaperone and I got to stay in a hotel with my friends. It was a seven year old’s dream come true!

I remember that one little girl was frightened to be away from home, but even then I already had a wandering bee in my bonnet and I felt so grown up and independent to be spending the night “all alone.”

I wore a pink (my then favorite color) sundress that my mom made to the wedding. At the time my hair was even finer than it is now, but one of the moms was able to get it under control in a very cute braid. I felt so pretty…

…Except that the night before the wedding when little girls were being little girls, I fell down and scraped my knee (a common occurrence when I was small) and so I ended up going to Miss Wright’s wedding with a band-aid on my knee.

We got to sit very near the front of the church during the wedding and for 7 small girls of 7, we were remarkably well-behaved. Afterwards, we even got our picture taken with Miss Wright. (I bet my mom still has that photo somewhere.)

I don’t recall going to Miss Wright’s reception, but I do remember eating at McDonald’s… And as a 7 year old coming from a town with no McDonald’s of its own, you can bet that thrilled me more than any reception could have!

July Recap/August Goals

It’s crazy. Even though I don’t go to school or work in academia anymore, the summer still seems to go by too fast. Can you believe it is almost August already? But I guess that does make sense. After all, over at the Stitching Bloggers’ Exchange Board we are getting all ready for Halloween and Autumn with appropriately-themed exchanges.

I am sure most of you are already aware of the Stitching Bloggers’ Exchange Board, but if you aren’t, a group of us stitching bloggers thought it would be fun to do some exchanges. Personally, I am involved in the Halloween and Needleroll exchanges. There are all sorts of others going on though; from Christmas ornaments to pet-themed exchanges! If you are interested in joining in, you can hop over there and check it out.

Anyway, as I was saying… it’s almost August already, which means it is time for the monthly goal post.

As a reminder, my July goals were:

Continue to stitch at least 90 minutes a day.
** I did really well this month with this goal. I stitched all but 4 days in July and most days I average about 2 ½ - 3 hours of stitching. **

Continue with “Passing Admirers” as my focus piece with the goal of finishing it by September 10, 2005. (Stitch a minimum of 20 hours on it during the month.)
** Unfortunately, I didn’t stitch much on it at all…only about 6 hours because “Tempest” unwittingly became my focus! However, I did pick it back up the last few days as you can see by the WIP shot at the beginning of the post. **

Finish EMS RR
** I have not quite finished what I have dubbed the “RR piece from Hell”, but the post date isn’t until August 10. I can’t wait to get it finished and finally get this awful pattern out of my sight. **

Start Stitching Bloggers’ RR.
** YES! And I am almost finished too! **

Continue working on my “Little Stitch Devils” and my “Guardian Cherub.”
** Not even. They just aren’t screaming at me. **

Stitch pansy #6 on “Stiefmütterchen,” my SAL with Susie.
** Susie has been really busy, so we didn’t get a chance to SAL this month. **

And of course, in addition to that, I started and finished TW’s “‘Tempest’ in a Teacup” and have signed up for a couple of exchanges over at the Stitching Bloggers’ Exchange Board.

Now for August, I hope to:

Continue to stitch at least 90 minutes a day.

Finish EMS RR. (Aug 10 post date)

Finish Stitching Bloggers’ RR. (Sept 1 post date)

Start my exchanges. (Sept 12 and 30 post dates)

Continue with “Passing Admirers.”
** My goal was to finish it by September 10, but with the post dates of these new exchanges being so close to that, I may have to extend it. **

Edited to add: If I have time, stitch pansy #6 on “Stiefmütterchen,” my SAL with Susie.

Re-think my rotation in order to better incorporate my obligation stitching.

That’s it for August. It sounds a little boring, but I will get to start two new projects for the exchanges! Hopefully that will curb any start-itis I might have as I really, really, really want to finish “Passing Admirers” as close to the September 10 goal date as possible.

German Tip #12: Peanut Butter

Peanut butter is not very common in Europe: That isn’t to say that you can’t get it here, you can. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you might find some JIF in the “American” section of the supermarket, but don’t be surprised if it is past its expiration date.

You might even find some in the aisle with the jams and jellies in a jar that has an American flag on it and is labeled something like Echte Amerikanische Erdnuss Butter! (translation: real (ha!) American peanut butter) However, as a true American peanut butter connoisseur, I must impress upon you that it is not real American peanut butter no matter what they try and tell you and I highly discourage you from trying it… unless you really liked that government-issued peanut butter that they served you in elementary school.

For the most part, Europeans don’t seem to appreciate peanut butter. I suppose it is a taste that most Americans acquire early in their lives. After all, according to Skippy (my personal favorite brand of peanut butter) “the average American child will eat 1,500 peanut butter sandwiches by the time he or she graduates from high school.”

For all intents and purposes, Europe’s “peanut butter” is Nutella. Like peanut butter, Nutella tastes delicious spread on bread and mothers often fix it for their children as a snack when they get home from school.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I L-O-V-E Nutella. I discovered it when I was studying in France and when I returned to America I sought it out. (Unfortunately, where I lived Nutella seemed to suffer the same fate as peanut butter does here: Every time I found a jar it was either past or very near to its expiration date) Since moving to Germany I have become quite the Nutella addict. At first I spread it on my bread, but then I gave up on the bread and now I just eat it by the spoonful out of the jar!

But no matter how much I like Nutella, it just doesn’t replace peanut butter in my book. So, back in March when my friend Susie asked if there was anything she could bring me from the States, the first thing that ran through my mind was PEANUT BUTTER! (OK, actually the first thing that I thought of was some really good Iowa beef, but since it is perishable, I made do with the second thing that crossed my mind: peanut butter.)

And boy howdy did she bring me some peanut butter! I was just expecting a regular sized jar of my requested Skippy Extra Crunchy, but instead I was surprised with two super sized jars of the stuff!

On my way home that March afternoon I bought a bag of apples, a jar of strawberry jam, and a loaf of sandwich bread and for two weeks I ate almost nothing except apples with peanut butter and peanut butter and “jelly” sandwiches.

Once my first jar was gone, I realized what a precious commodity I had in my second jar and so I vowed not to open it until I am really desperate for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich… which I am sure will happen before its expiration date of May 2006.

And for now… well, I guess it’s back to Nutella for me!