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Sunday, 30 November 2008

Christmas in November

Yesterday was the last meeting of my Saturday sewing club for the year, so we celebrated an early Christmas and it was really nice. I wore my knitted christmas waistcoat and christmas earrings, and collected all the Secret Santa gifts in a big Santa bag. We had a christmas tablecloth for our potluck lunch and I gave wrapped gifts to my two helpers who make it all possible every month. The group surprised me with a lovely thank you present they had all chipped in for, which was a pack of snowflake themed blue FQs, a book on hand knitting and some cash. My Secret Santa gift was a great printed panel Advent Calendar, which I really like, but I don't think I am going to make it up in time for tomorrow!

I snapped a photo of my Noro gloves with the pink finger, but this weekend I have cut off the pink finger (not with my hand inside) and reknit a blue finger so it looks a lot more like a matching pair of gloves. Now I just need to sew in the loose ends and they will be done. You can see in this picture how much the colour repeat varied. The gloves are virtually identical up to where the dark blue starts just above the thumb, then the first glove immediately went into a lot of brighter colours, while the second glove stayed dark blue for almost all the fingers.

Meanwhile the sock I took on the TBH has become my Portable Project. I took it along to a knitting evening on Thursday and got several more inches knit, and this weekend when we went down to visit the Christmas market in Bath, I turned the heel. I actually turned the heel twice, because the first time I had an odd number of stitches left over and realised that I had counted wrong on the first row. This is what happens when you try to turn a heel while simultaneously reading a magazine, watching the hotel tv and talking to your family. This is in Regia sock yarn and I am trying their generic sock pattern on the free leaflet. It is actually quite relaxing to just knit, without having to stop for thumbs and fingers like on the gloves. If Swooze likes the colours then perhaps she would like to have this pair when it's done :) . I tried a new-to- me cast on for these socks which I really like. You take a really long tail, do a long tail cast on around two needles held next to each other, then knit the first row with both strands of yarn. The result is a very stretchy, and yet nicely firm, edge to the top of the ribbing.

I finished stitching down the very wide binding on my xmas tree skirt. I purposely made it wide so that it acts as a final border, but it is now waving a bit as it isn't very stable. I may stitch all the way around 1/4 inch from the edge to stabilise the outer edge more. I took it to Show and Tell on Saturday and people quite liked it.

Friday night I took part in an online workshop with Jane Harrop, organised by the Stay at Home Miniaturists Group to make this leather armchair and side table. The instructions were excellent as always and I am hoping this will look good in my Rik Pierce house. The leather was really fine and soft and quite good to work with. This is 1/12th scale. You could also make a box of xmas decorations but I didn't buy that kit as it wouldn't fit in my RP house.

Sunday, 23 November 2008

Back to normal...

I've just enjoyed a wonderful three days at home (I worked at home on Friday). Thursday night when I got home, I was so exhausted from the ordeal that I fell into bed at 9 p.m. Friday morning I wasn't really much better, and didn't really get going until about 10:30 a.m. But we've had a lovely weekend - the weather has been terrible with driving sleet and rain, so we have snuggled indoors all weekend and I've done lots of sewing. Today I even baked, something I rarely do: I made three different types of cookie and a coffee cake - once I had everything out, it just seemed easy to keep going. My family is thrilled, needless to say.

I finished this kit, called the Seamstress' Companion by Lisa's Little Things, which has gone into my quilting shop as a decorative display. It was rather fiddly as there are a lot of components, but I am really pleased with how it has turned out. I started it last Sunday when I had the house to myself, and finished it this weekend.

I've almost finished my xmas tree skirt. Here are some closeups of the Santa and reindeer, you can see the reins that link all the reindeer together, and the deer now have antlers, eyes, buttons on their harness etc. At the moment I am sewing down the binding, will take another pic when it is all done.

I've finished my Noro gloves but the second glove came out a different colour in the fingers than the first glove, which means the colourway in Noro Kureyon does not repeat exactly. The cuffs and palms are the same, but the first glove changed to several bright colours for the fingers whereas the second glove did not. So I think I might undo one of the first glove's fingers and re-knit it, because it is a bright pink and looks odd, like I dipped that finger in paint.

My Saturday sewing club is this coming weekend, so I made two more sample BOM blocks. We're almost finished now, just one more block to do in January. One lady is doing the whole top in just black and white, it looks fantastic.

I am hoping to set up my tabletop quilting frame in December and tackle my mound of tops. I got them all out and piled them up for this pic, then went through them. Some of them are too big for my frame, which only takes a single, but I think there are six that I can quilt on the frame. So I started pulling stash for the backs, this is going to use up a lot of stash in one swell foop. I also have the FQs that I pieced together several months ago when I had that big clearout, so I will make two backs out of those, and the rest of the backs are large pieces that I had in my stash. I bought a handlebar speed control so I won't have to improvise with my foot pedal tied to the handles anymore, which should be a big improvement. I haven't used the frame since last Christmas, so hopefully I will be able to get back up to speed on it.

Back to work tomorrow, sigh... I need to buy more lottery tickets.

Thursday, 20 November 2008

TBH Day 3: I survived, no handcuffs

I'm now waiting for a taxi which is coming in an hour to take a colleague to the airport, and I am sharing her cab as I live near the airport. WE'VE FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a complete waste of three days of my life. However, I am proud to say I did not kill anyone, I am not leaving in handcuffs, I did not even lose my temper. I can't say that I distinguished myself professionally in any way, but I did not disgrace myself with any unseemly behaviour and was even able to be civil to our RAP (really annoying person). So I have done slightly better than our secretary, whose frustration began to vent onto the person of the facilitator, to the point where the secretary had to leave the room in the last half hour when the facilitator was trying to 'shush' the secretary as she took flipcharts down off the wall. Otherwise I think there might have been some bloodshed. The facilitator is rather annoying. She tried to sneak up on me when I was writing a letter to a friend during the morning's presentation because I am pretty sure she suspected me of not paying attention and wanted to expose me. It was a bit like a science fiction film, to begin with she was about 8 feet behind me, then next time I looked she was sitting at the end of my table, then I happened to glance up and she had moved her chair right up behind mine. I casually put down my agenda on top of my letter, leaving her frustrated I'm sure. Then later when she was distracted I put my letter in my purse.

Today was even more of a waste of time as most people had lost energy and were just sleepwalking through the day. Today was supposed to be all about planning our activities for the coming year. Not only was it a bad move to schedule this for day 3 when we are all zombies, but the time being given for the task was ludicrously short. Our breakout groups were supposed to come up with a year's plan in only one hour for each topic. Plus it became blatantly obvious that our ineffectual team leader has her own agenda as she kept popping into our syndicate rooms to give us strong steers in her preferred direction. Which is even more demotivating because you don't feel your output will go anywhere. Her favourite habit is to say, with warm sincerity: "that's a really good idea" and beam at you. I used to feel good about this response when I first joined, until I realised that it is her way of ignoring the idea. In fact, I was keeping count for a while today of the number of times she used the expression without writing down the idea or recording it in any way. Then I got into double figures and got bored. Perhaps she has a photographic memory but based on my observances, I would say not. It comes down to this in the end, that it doesn't matter how much brainstorming we do on being more efficient, higher performing, blah blah blah - if the leadership is not changing, then nothing changes. In fact, about my only takeaway from the endurance fest of the last three days is to discover that a few other (more senior) team members aren't too happy either with how our team operates. However, they are much more professional than me at playing the game.

So, dear readers, I apologise for putting you through TBH with me the last few days, but it has really helped me cope to know that you were here with me in spirit (or at least laughing at what I was going through) - thank you for your emails and comments of support.

Update on TBH Day 2: the dinner

Some of you may be wondering if I am making all this up, just to be funny. Sadly I am not.

Last night we congregated in the lobby , with much straggling, and fit into three taxis plus one person following in their car, to go out to a nearby pub for our second team dinner. It seemed a longer drive that I was expecting, and as my taxi (the second) drove away, the occupants of the first taxi came rushing back out of the pub calling to it to wait. (it didn't) Apparently the taxis were delivering us to The Swan pub in the wrong village. (Swan is a common pub name).

After a bit of finger pointing (I'm still not sure who gave the taxi firm the wrong address, whether it was our hapless secretary, the inefficient hotel, or our facilitator), our token male member phoned the taxi firm to explain the mistake. Now, this is the same grumpy taxi firm that we suffered with the first night. He got an ear full of abuse, saying it was our fault for giving them the wrong address, and they hung up on him without actually committing to sending a new taxi. Meanwhile the third taxi arrived, and having had the problem explained to them, drove off just as I pointed out that a fourth person could have gone into that taxi. So we all stood around in the cold for a while, I went into the pub to get warm and to call my husband to share the joke. The poor secretary hadn't brought the phone number of the pub we were supposed to be going to (I think she has learned a few hard lessons about organising an away day) so she felt really bad. After about 15 minutes, a cab did arrive, and we managed to cram into that and into the car of the woman who was driving herself. We finally arrived at the right pub about a half hour late, and starving. Dinner itself was fine (I am eating far too much these few days) then we called a cab to get back to the hotel. Again it was the grumpy taxi firm (they must run the only taxi firm in the area, and therefore get away with being as rude as they like) and when we asked the driver to pause briefly so that the woman colleague driving herself and others, could get her doors closed and pull out to follow us back to the hotel, we got a surly reply to the effect that he had other calls to go to that night, didn't he. He refused to stop, and only grudgingly pulled in to the side of the road after we were all protesting loudly, then he sulked all the way back to the hotel. Charming behaviour.

One last day to get through, and then I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!! (until Monday anyway,...)

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

TBH Day two

Things to do to pass the time in meetings, meanwhile maintaining an expression of rapt attention

  • mental review of all current craft projects, with much mental fondling
  • pelvic floor exercises
  • try not to worry about DVT because of sitting too long with legs crossed
  • time the sunbeam as it tracks from one carpet square to the next, calculate how many carpet squares to traverse before the lunch break
  • mental knitting: amazingly satisfying, accompany with subtle finger twitching
  • experiment with eyes-open meditation: success if you can manage to miss at least two Powerpoint slides without losing expression of intent professional interest
  • inspect shoes and surreptiously remove dirt
  • inspect fingernails, ditto
  • check if team secretary is still awake
  • spin quietly back and forth on swivel chair
  • ever so casually adjust watch on wrist, so that later you can glance down to check time
  • regularly check agenda just in case it has miraculously shrunk and lunchtime is closer than you realised
  • occasionally nod as if the speaker is really profound
  • look longingly through narrow glass window in door, at the real world where lucky people have freedom of movement and don't have to look at Powerpoint slides
  • inspect colleagues and try to guess if their expressions of intent interest are in fact sincere
  • feel guilty and amazed at how much money you are earning to sit here on your butt accomplishing precisely zero, compared to people who have real jobs and work really hard, like teachers and police officers.
  • catch the media relations manager taking a long sniff of an uncapped marker pen. Begin to wonder about substance abuse. Resolve to check manager's nose over lunch as it looks like she has accidentally painted her nose with a fluorescent pink dry wipe marker
  • wonder at the lack of self awareness in people, who put points on flipcharts like "stop wasting time in team meetings" when they are the worst offenders

We got off to a 'great' start this morning [irony]. After a session where we were all supposed to call out what we got out of yesterday's session (luckily nobody asked me what I thought of it), we were then asked to each label a flipchart with our name (no anonymity) and put down what we hoped to give over the next few days, and what we hoped to take away. Since my answers would be 'nothing' and 'my sanity', I was a bit stumped, but it was all too much for our poor secretary who burst into tears and fled the room. I felt really bad for her, she is even more bored than I am and it is even less relevant for her, plus she doesnt have my years of experience at pretending to be paying attention during long presentations. She was coaxed back in with much expression of inclusiveness and team spirit, but I don't see that this was an improvement for her as then she had to sit through the rest of the day. She should have kept running...

Tuesday, 18 November 2008

Teambuilding Hell Day One

I'm writing this with my knees crammed up against my rickety hotel door, because that is the only location in my room where the free hotel wireless signal is strong enough (29%). Predictably, instead of being housed in the main Edwardian country house part of the hotel, we are in a sort of motel annex across two car poorly lit car parks, and my room is down so many corridors and fire doors that I was tempted to lay a trail of breadcrumbs. I survived our afternoon start session: a 3.5 hour meeting in a windowless basement room, where I amused myself by watching both the secretary who had organised the meeting, and the facilitator who had just flown back from Canada, trying to stay awake. The facilitator's alertness strategy was to frown horrendously while forcing her eyes wide open, making her look quite mad. Then there was the usual muddle of trying to get eleven people to all collect their bags, go to the bathroom, and get out of the building, where we jammed ourselves onto a subway to get to the train station,.Waiting at the station at the other end were two grumpy taxi drivers (grumpy because we were 10 minutes late) who threw our suitcases into their cars and crammed us all in somehow. Our fashion designer media affairs manager had a luxury leather designer suitcase which she didn't want to have to carry on her lap, so the driver made several attempts to get it in the back, repeatedly smashing the hatch down like it would somehow magically close, and eventually broke off her handle then didn't even apologise. At the hotel, when we found out we were being put in the motel-like annex, we stood around for another 10 minutes while our secretary objected, to no avail. So here I am - the walls are so thin that I could hear my team mate hanging up every article of clothing in her room, which doesn't bode well for watching tv later. They've all rushed off to the bar to salvage the evening before we have to meet up for a team dinner. I am planning on an hour of peace, quiet and sanity restoring knitting... In fact, by the time I had packed three lots of knitting, my little laptop for the internet, and some books, there was no room left in my suitcase for clothes so I had to snatch the next largest suitcase off my son when he got back from his school trip last night.

Update: Dinner wasn't actually too bad, some of the workaholics actually loosened up and became a little human for a while. The menu, while pedestrian, was tasty enough. Halfway through the staff announced they would move our things to new rooms if we would give them our keys. I had to say I would move myself, as I was very conscious that I had left my knitting out on my bed and i didn't want to take the chance that they might overlook a needle or something vital. So at 9:45 pm I trekked across the dark wet car parks to pack my things and trundle back to the main part of the hotel. I am now in a much bigger room with a huge bathroom. This room is far too hot (the previous one was freezing), still very noisy (luckily I brought earplugs), but has the virtue of wired internet access which I was able to stretch across to the bed so I am now typing in relative comfort. Only two more days to go... and I've started knitting the last finger of my Noro gloves.

Sunday, 16 November 2008

Teambuilding Hell

I've had an orgy of crafting today, because both Ds and Dh were out of the house all day. I spent a lot of the day dollshousing, but also did some quilting on my xmas tree skirt, plus knitting in front of the tv when I felt like a break. I felt a curious sense of deja vu, and realised that this is how I used to spend my time before I had a child, when weekends were completely at my disposal to spend as I pleased. Before I turned into a catering machine, homework nag, laundry worker and events planner. When the only deadline was "when will the glue dry so I can move to the next step", rather than "I've got 35 minutes until I have to put the vegetables on..." It was rather nice to re-visit the good old days, but on the other hand the house did seem pretty quiet and by late afternoon I was feeling lonely :( .

Today was the big day, that I have been building up to for several months: I poured the resin for the 'river' in front of my Rik Pierce house. I've been dreading it, as I've never worked with resin before, and I had visions of it either draining away through some unspotted hole, to spread all over the table. Or, of it never setting, and all my hard work being mired in a lake of permanently sticky goo. I used Envirotek Lite, which is the product recommended by Rik. I don't know if you can get it in the UK, I made sure to buy some at a hobby shop in America when I was there. The directions stress how important it is that you a) mix it properly, b) have proper ventilation, and c) it has to be at least 70 degrees for it to set (which kind of contradicts point 'b'). So I got everything ready, decided to sacrifice two old drinking glasses as mixing containers, spent some time hunting for a sturdy stir stick and ended up using one of my quilting rulers (gasps of horror from all the quilters reading this, but don't worry, I wiped it clean and then wiped it again with alcohol to remove the goo). I also cranked the central heating up to 21 degrees, then opened some windows and set the kitchen timer for the 2 minutes of mixing time, then for the 20 minutes that I had to pour it.

I was so worried about getting the 'water' to flow under the dock and around the boat, that I ended up flooding the resin right out the other side when I tilted the house up to encourage the resin to flow. Lots of mopping up with paper towels, before I poured the rest of the resin onto the exposed 'river'. Luckily I had mixed lots, the whole 8 fluid oz package. The smell was pretty overpowering, and even with the windows open I was feeling a bit lightheaded by the time I was satisfied. Then came the anxious wait all day to see if it would set. I left the kitchen closed up and the heat on, so it was good and warm in there. It is now almost 9 hours later, and it does seem to be setting, it is firm now but still a bit sticky. It looks great, like real water, but I wish I had done a better job painting the floor of the river. The resin seems to magnify every little scratch or defect in the paint when you look closely.

Here are the baby booties that I knit from an Erika Knight pattern published in 'Simply Knitting' magazine, using the newly launched Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK (75 extra fine merino, 20 silk, 5 cashmere). I have to be honest and admit that I did not enjoy either this pattern or this yarn. The pattern, which looks so simple, is like knitting origami, lots of stops and starts so you end up with several ends to sew in. You have to knit two mirror images, and it would have benefited hugely from a diagram to figure out what was going on. The yarn is extremely slippery, so much so that metal needles just fell right out of it, and made the knitting hard to hang on to when grasping the needles. The ball also fell apart. I switched to bamboo needles which was a big improvement but the yarn still felt almost slimy in the hands. The hat is from a pattern called "Grace's Lacy Star Hat" by Candace Bryant Janis, and was in my pattern a day knitting calendar for 2008. It is a great little knit, and apart from the slimy yarn, I really enjoyed it. I'm just finishing a pink hat, so I will have two sets for whatever gender presents itself, although I'm not convinced the hat will ever stay on a baby's head in this slippery yarn.

I was embarrassed to find, when I started quilting my xmas tree skirt, that I have gotten really 'pants' at it (to use a British expression). It has probably been months since I seriously quilted anything, and I have really lost the knack. I have done large stippling in the sky area, and squiggles-and-stars in the borders, but a lot of my stars look like they were drawn by a drunk.

I called this post 'teambuilding hell' because Tuesday I am obligated to attend a three day / two night teambuilding event at a hotel. I am dreading it, because there are several people on my new team that I don't like at all, and in fact one of them is incredibly annoying. Some of the others are alright, but there is absolutely nothing that we will possibly be doing that is going to make it worthwhile spending three whole days in their company. I will be lucky if I'm not leaving the hotel in the back of a squad car on Thursday. What a complete waste of time and money, not to mention imposing on my family and interrupting my crafting. I am taking lots of knitting, and hope to at least get some of that done, if I can get away with it. My husband has promised to come and visit me if I get absolutely desperate. So think of me, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and wish me to have willpower and self control. And plenty of tolerance. I am going to be so booooooooooooooooooooooooooored.
One last review: I bought a new knitting magazine that I haven't seen before called "Verena knitting" from Burda, which claims to be Europe's top knit magazine. I've not seen it on the shelves before, and the subscription card invites people to become charter subscribers, so I assume it is fairly new. Despite the claim re Europe, it appears to be published and edited in the United States. I am disappointed with it. At first glance the high-fashion photographs make it look like a really cutting edge magazine. But when you actually look at the garments, most of them are either unflattering, unwearable in real life, or both, and there are no supplementary photographs with the patterns, despite the high fashion photographs covering up much of the essential construction detail with accessories or weird camera angles. There are a few patterns which aren't too bad, but there is something seriously strange going on with a lot of the sleeves, which appear to be far too tight even on the models' stick arms, with armpit hugging armholes. So that one is going in the recycling bin, not to my taste.
One of the podcasts I listen to has said that they have switched to Wordpress for their blog, because they got so fed up with Blogger's formatting problems. I always have problems when I add images, so I am tempted to go try out Wordpress. Any thoughts?

Sunday, 9 November 2008

Last night we went to a local fireworks display for Guy Fawkes. The weather was pretty uncertain, very rainy and gusts of wind all day, I thought it might get cancelled. But late in the afternoon the weather calmed down, and the display went ahead at 6 pm. Dh and Ds indulged in the provided sausages in buns, but I didn't risk it. The display lasted about 10 or 15 minutes, and there were probably 300 + people there cheering and oohing and ahhing. Nice autumn thing to do.

I got the borders onto my tree skirt, and the applique is all sewn down now. I've also pieced a backing for it. But before I quilt it, I think I will machine embroider the reindeer antlers, instead of doing them by hand afterwards like the pattern suggests. After quilting, I will cut out the hole for the tree, bind the entire edge, and sew on buttons and 'reins' connecting all the reindeer.

I also did some more work on my Rik Pierce house. I had bought some plastic greenery at Hobbycraft, so I pulled that apart and 'planted' a garden on both sides of the house, to make it look like it is nestled in natural surroundings. It was fun, like instant gardening, and really brings the house to life. The next step will be to pour the resin for the river in front of the house, something I am rather nervous about as I have never used resin before.

A strange thing happened at work. I was hiding in the bathroom for some peace and quiet and a bit of knitting (as you do), when someone else came in to another cubicle and proceeded to sob their heart out for five minutes. It was awful. I didn't know whether to make a noise and reveal myself, or just keep quiet and hope they didn't notice they weren't alone. I kept quiet in the end until they left. I think it might have been one of my team mates, whose fiance has broken up with her recently and wrecked her life. She is moving to another apartment soon, so when I got out of the bathroom I emailed her to ask her if she would like a quilt for her new place. I will take in some of my UFO tops on Monday to see if she likes any of them, then quilt it for her over Christmas. Thank god for being married and not having to date any more. Most of my team are significantly younger than me, and are still single, moving house frequently, travelling, wondering about going home for christmas to their parents, all that stuff that seems so long ago for me and I am grateful to be in a more settled period of my life. (touch wood...)

Sunday, 2 November 2008

Suddenly it's November

Suddenly it's November - how did that happen? I was out every night last week, including a tedious one night business trip to an industrial park in Rijswijk, Holland which used up two whole days but at least gave me lots of knitting time on my 2nd Noro glove (which now has a thumb and a little finger). I took two sets of wooden dpns for the glove and they went through security in both directions at the airport without comment. Friday I worked from home, so had time to put up the Halloween decorations and carve some pumpkins. I bagged up 40 bags of sweets, then suddenly worried that I wouldn't have enough so made a dash to Woolworth for a few more bags. In the end, we only had about 20 children come to the door, which is disappointing but at least they had all made an effort with their costumes and loved my decorations. That left me with a huge quantity of sweets, so I took all the bagged up sweets over to a friend's, who is going to take them to another friend who is having a charity sale to raise money for a hospice - she will use them for a Lucky Dip, so they are going to a good cause. Now we are looking forward to a good fireworks display for Guy Fawkes - there is a big commercial one next Saturday which we will likely go to.

The other thing I did on Friday was finish off the Paperclay shingles on my Rik Pierce house. I managed to do it from 1 3/4 bags of Paperclay, so didn't have to open my third and final pack. After letting them dry completely, on Sunday I gave them a dirty water wash, then a terracotta paint job (and boy were there a zillion nooks and crannies - I kept thinking I was finished then spotting more white bits), then touched up with 3 or 4 other colours, then applied flock in various sizes. We also had a trip to Hobbycraft today because I had some vouchers, and I picked up some artificial greenery to do the garden with.

I also made some bulrushes this weekend, using some plastic thin greenery I bought at Joanne's Fabrics in Indiana. I cut several tips for the leaves, then a bit of stem which I dipped in glue and then into brown flock for the rush. Then I glued them into a bundle. Once that was dry, I glued it into the 'river' in front of the house. When the glue dries I will touch up their surroundings with paint.

I've been knitting on Bianca's Jacket in Rowan Summer Tweed. Funnily enough, I was listening to a podcast where the speaker said she hated knitting with this yarn. I quite like it, it is soft and chenille like. You have to pull the stitches through a bit as it is not elastic, but I like the feel of it, and it knits up quite quickly. I am just casting off for the armholes now, after knitting the bottom part all in one piece. Next I have to do the sleeves, then all the pieces get picked up for a lace yoke which will be fun. When we were at Hobbycraft today I picked up several colours of DK weight yarn to try my hand at some more teddy bears from The Knitted Teddy Bear book. The bear I knit before was in a thin 4 ply and he looked a bit scrawny, so I want to try again.
Progress on the xmas tree skirt is slow. I have zigzagged over all the applique pieces now in invisible thread, and I have cut out most of the pieces for the scrap border but haven't sewn them yet.

I spent an hour and a half Saturday morning trying to reduce the pile of magazines which is threatening to swamp my desk and also the kitchen. I haven't had as much time to read them lately, and they build up quite quickly especially when I keep old ones thinking that I am going to look up some of the links on the internet. I am dropping my subscription to two of my American dollshouse mags because the exchange rate is so bad, but I can't feel too virtuous because of subscribing to Simply Knitting and Debbie Bliss Knitting at the Alexandra Palace show. What can I say, I am a magazine slut...

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Sunday, 27 November 2016

Snuggling down for winter

I hear so many people moaning about the weather and saying things like 'roll on summer' but I have to confess that I rather like this time of year. Last night we had a wood fire in the fireplace as we watched the Gilmore Girls revival and sipped some Lindisfarne Mead that DH found when he was out christmas shopping. I was wearing my felted Arne and Carlos slippers I made last winter and it all felt very cosy. I like bundling up in my woollies to go outside, and I've got two handmade quilts on my bed to stay warm at night.  And anyway, it's very unlikely to ever get as cold here in the East Midlands of the UK as it used to do when I lived in Ottawa in Canada, where it regularly dropped down to minus 40 Celsius in the winter. Although that was a dry cold, and it can feel rather miserable here even at 11 degrees when it's raining and my feet get soaked, which happened on Monday.

Today we are going to go out and try our best with our too-short stepladder to arrange some outdoor lights in our front trees.  We managed one tree last year and it looked nice so we are going to go for two this year.  DS isn't coming home until quite close to Christmas this year, so we can put the tree and decorations up when we choose.  Perhaps next weekend.

I spent a lot of my day off working on dollshouse stuff and I am going to try to keep that up.  This week I was working on filling window boxes and hanging baskets for my shed project and to finish off the Victorian gazebo porch.  I also started work on the base for the shed, riffing off some tips published by Bea Broadwood of Petite Properties in an article about creating 1:48 bases published in Dollshouse and Miniature Scene magazine. After choosing some accessories then drawing around the base of the shed, I filled the terrain in with Tetrion filler and left it to dry. It doesn't look like much yet.

The windowboxes I built myself out of lolly sticks and the hanging baskets are re-purposed bottle caps. I filled them with paperclay then 'planted' them with various bits of greenery.  The wires sticking out everywhere will be the hanging basket supports. I managed to stab myself on one of the sharp wire ends and it wouldn't stop bleeding so consequently there are some interesting 'rust' stains on several baskets.

Saturday I was back at the quilting shop for a sewing day.  I had prepared the rest of the pieces of the appliqued houses tea cosy and finished the quilting on it, so I was able to assemble it first thing in the morning.

I spent the rest of the morning cutting out the numerous pieces required for the honeycomb basket pattern that I bought at the Makit fair in St Ives.  There are seven pockets that all require outside fabric, inside liners, bases and base liners and Bosal stiffening pieces, so it took a while. But it's all cut out now ready to start sewing.

In the afternoon I was chain piecing half square triangles for the saw tooth border of my indigo bear's paw quilt. I was annoyed to find that I was several squares short because I thought I had made enough.  I couldn't face making any more right then so I started to put away my sewing machine. Guess what I found when I shifted the sewing machine?  Yes, a little pile of the remaining squares hiding under the machine. So I was able to complete four strips of sawtooth.  I finished off the day by stitching a very little on my Hawaiian applique quilt.

While we were watching Gilmore Girls, I was working on my Gilmore Girls Mystery Cowl, a mystery knit along organised on Ravelry.  Clue 2 is really long so I am still stuck on that one, but clues 3 and 4 are already published.  I can't look because I don't want to spoil the surprise.  This is what I've got so far.

There are four contrast colours so I am guessing that the stripey section will get repeated in the other three colours.  The lefthand part of the V is on waste yarn so I expect we will be knitting a big loop then grafting back onto the held live stitches to complete the cowl.

I was clearing out some of my sewing room yesterday and came across the Christmas panel I bought a while ago so I am considering whether I want to try to make that up in time to use as a table runner or wall hanging this year. My son was making me laugh on the telephone as he was grumbling about having to pay up for a deposit for a Christmas meal with his office team, his first experience of the non-optional social convention of office Christmas do's.  We only have a small round of those this year: I'm going to DH's modelling club christmas meal and he is coming to my dollshouse club's turkey dinner at the pub. Then we both have separate office christmas meals as well.  Something to look forward to, plus some holiday coming up.

Sunday, 20 November 2016

Getting back to normal

We've been home a full week now, and already Japan is starting to seem like it was a while ago.  I'm still trying to weed out photos, I have probably eliminated about 100 so far but that still leaves far too many.  By Friday, work was starting to feel like "oh, so this is my life huh?" so the weekend has been a welcome respite.

I hope some of you checked out my extra posts this past week about Japan.  I have one more photo of stuff I bought which didn't fit in the previous posts:

These are all paper items.  Six cards of classic Japanese woodblock prints which I am having framed into two sets of three.  Two sets of woodblock coasters, two reels of pretty printed washi tape (good for decorating envelopes etc) and a pack of indigo printed washi paper which I'm sure I'll find a use for.  I got more coasters and more washi paper as gifts for my bobbin lace ladies as we seem to have gotten into the habit of bringing each other gifts from our holidays.

Catching up a bit, just before we left for Japan I managed to hotwire my broken overlocker footpedal and finish off my One-Hour top, a free online pattern from Fancy Tiger Crafts.  I wore it to work after I got back.  I don't normally like dolman sleeves but the fabric is so drapey that the excess under the arms didn't bother me, and I quite like this £2/m fabric I got off the market in Birmingham.

I also finished the winter cottage tea cosy I was knitting before we left. This was a pattern
from Let's Knit magazine but I couldn't find the colour of Aran
yarn they used for the cottage. So I experimented with holding two colours of
DK yarn together but I'm not entirely happy with the
mottled effect this created. Although I suppose it looks brick-like.

 This week I've done some more work on the applique houses tea cosy I started before we went to Japan. (You may be wondering why I need so many tea cosies, lol. I just like making them.).  I've now moved on to embellishing the fusible applique with free motion stitching in black thread.  It's a good refresher on free motion quilting.  This is the first side embellished and I'm working on the second side currently.  Then the background of both sides gets quilted in toning thread to create a textured effect before making it up into a cosy with a padded lining.

We've watched a fair bit of TV this week, catching up on what taped while we were away.  I'm still working on the Drops top-down yoked sweater and have just about finished the yoke now.  I went to get more yarn from my 11-ball stash and realised that I had already used four balls just on the yoke. I panicked a bit and have now ordered a safety margin of more Drops Karisma yarn from Wool Warehouse.  It won't be the same dyelot but I feel better knowing I will have some more in case I need it.

DH had a big finish this week by finally completing the cross stitch blue and white picture that he started several months ago.  I bought the pattern from someone selling off their mother's cross stitch stash, just because I thought it was pretty. I didn't think I would ever make it because it is so big and complicated. DH had done a bit of cross stitch before and having studied the pattern, volunteered to have a go at it. I was sceptical because he didn't really enjoy what he had made before although he likes the end products.  He persisted so I pulled together the supplies for him and ordered some linen evenweave cloth.  He did a brilliant job, painstakingly unpicking anything he wasn't happy  with, and soldiering on through multiple complex charts. He was pretty much hating it by the end but he completed every stitch. The 'white' background of the plate and tea set is all individually stitched, and there was a ton of intricate back-stitch. Doesn't it look great?  I will get it framed and it will go on display in pride of place on our living room wall.  He says he is never doing any cross stitch ever again. :)

It's turned quite cold here so I've been enjoying wearing the Baa-bles hat and mitten set that I knitted last winter, nice and warm.  We went to Oxford on Saturday to visit DS and take him his obligatory souvenir t-shirt (and a few other things). It was great to see him and Oxford is already starting to look quite festive with lights and christmas-sy things.  We had a lovely cup of tea and some very nice cakes and cream scones in the Vaults in Radcliffe Square.  All three of us are feeling sad that this is his last year in such a lovely city.

Hope you are staying warm in your hand knits or under your handmade quilts!

Wednesday, 16 November 2016

Dollhouse / miniatures - extra Japan post number four

I had done a little research online before we travelled but couldn't find much about the Japanese miniatures scene apart from a maker of food items in Tokyo and an annual Tokyo show (dates didn't coincide with our trip).

But I was on the lookout all the time in souvenir shops and craft shops for items that might work in my dollshouses. In particular, there is my Italian partwork to make a Japanese Ryokan inn that I bought on eBay last year, still waiting to be made.  It's in 1/16th scale but I was hopeful of finding some items that might fit into it. So I took lots of photos whenever we went into traditional buildings which I hope will help me in creating the interiors.

I was disappointed to find very little in the way of miniatures in the places we visited.  We went to a couple of toy departments but there was no dollshouse section or doll furniture. One toy shop in Kyoto did have an aisle of plastic mini items to furnish little vignettes, but the scale was all over the place. I did buy one card of kitchen appliances which I hope will fit my Ryokan scale.

Some of the doll shops or shops selling altars had no-scale simple furniture designed for use by the dolls/gods.  A couple of souvenir shops had crudely made wallhung room scenes in frames at astronomical prices.  Some of the souvenir shops had miniature sushi platters or food trays, as display items or fridge magnets, but again no particular scale and fairly crude.

We did see some superb scale models in various museums or at sightseeing sites.  In particular, the Edo-Tokyo museum in Tokyo is highly recommended, both for their interesting collections and recreated buildings, and for the extensive and detailed models of historical Japanese scenes and buildings. Here are a few shots of the Edo-Tokyo models.

DH found a sheet of stickers at Daiso (a 100-yen shop) of traditional Japanese woodblock prints which could be used at 1/12th or 1/16th. I also found a miniature rubber Buddha figurine at Tokyu Hands, a tiny ceramic Lucky Cat at a tea shop and a bigger Lucky Cat at a souvenir shop.

On one of our last days, DH spotted an adorable origami miniature doll display, like the dolls they display on Girls Day, which he bought for my birthday.

So I was quite astonished to spot a poster for a dollshouse museum when we were in Hakone-Machi, in the mountains.  The generic map made it seem like it was in the nearby resort of Moto-Hakone, but after conferring with the bus station information assistant (I took a picture of the poster and showed it to him on my camera), we were directed to take a bus up to a remote hamlet.  The museum was directly opposite the bus stop.  It's located in a strange set of linked greenhouses which I assume was formerly some kind of botanic garden. I couldn't help thinking that it is a most unsuitable environment for antique dollshouses due to all the light streaming in and probably a lack of temperature/humidity control.  Most of the labels are in Japanese but in English it explains that they bought several items from the Mott's Miniatures collection when it closed down and also from the sale of the Vivien Greene collection.

According to the poster, the museum opened in July 2015 but they seem to be still unpacking things. There was a large group of antique dollshouses in the last room which haven't been unpacked at all yet, huddled together with their contents in tupperwares.  I recognised items in display cabinets from English makers so I think someone may have made visits to the UK shows. And there around a half dozen thatched cottages from Little Homes of England, obviously someone's favourites.  The collection is a good size and it took us probably 45 minutes to go slowly around the linked greenhouses. There is a small shop area in the reception building with a few  hugely expensive imported minis (nothing Japanese), and a little cafe area.

This pond/water feature was randomly in one building, presumably left over from the days as a botanical garden centre.

 The houses still to be unpacked.

Although mainly of Western items, there were a few Japanese items. These
are some tiny 144th scale Japanese shops.

And this display below was by a Japanese maker, I liked
the unusual structure of the base.

This below is also by a Japanese maker, we weren't sure if it
is meant to be Shaker or if it is a Japanese carpentry shop (because
the worktable is so low).

So if you visit the resort of Hakone and you are into minis, definitely make the effort to go see this museum. I don't think it would be worth a special trip from Tokyo, but it's relatively easy to get to by bus if you are in Hakone anyway doing the 'loop' around the area. The stop is on the way back to Hakone Yumoto (the main base for the area) from MotoHakone and I think there were at least two buses an hour.

I would really like to start building my Japanese Ryokan kit now, but I know I need to finish all my outstanding dollshouse projects before my club comes to visit in July which is my deadline. At least I have amassed a good photo reference library of interiors and interior items like kitchen items and baskets which I'm sure will be quite useful.

Tuesday, 15 November 2016

Knitting - extra Japan post number three

My advance research was mainly about fabric, so I didn't specifically go to Japan looking for yarn.  I had already read online that Noro was no cheaper in Japan, which proved to be the case. I saw a couple of very small yarn shops in market malls, and there was a big yarn section in Okadaya in Tokyo, and I found a combined fabric and yarn shop in Nara, plus there were smaller yarn sections in some of the other stores we went to like Tokyu Hands, Daiso, department stores etc.  There was quite a lot of yarn labelled in Japanese, but also some imported brands from America and Italy. I think I saw Debbie Bliss but I'm not sure if I saw any Rowan (which is ubiquitous here in the UK). Sorry I can't remember what brands I saw but it all seemed pretty standard stuff, I didn't notice anything hugely different about a Japanese yarn store from a UK store.  Prices seemed similar to the UK as well.

As mentioned in the previous quilting post, I found decent sized sections for knitting and crocheting books in all the bookstores we looked in. Crocheting seems to be equally popular judging by the number of crochet books, and indeed almost all the knitting books included a good proportion of crocheted items as well. Mittens, hats and scarves were popular topics, as were tops and pullovers. Kids and baby clothes were also popular in both hobbies.  Some books focused on western techniques such as Aran cables, or fair isle colourwork.  I was looking for a book that had clever design and items I wanted to make (I don't crochet) but struggled. In the end I came away with one new stitch dictionary, one secondhand stitch dictionary from Bookoff, and a secondhand book of sweater patterns.  The secondhand prices at Bookoff were hugely cheaper than the new prices: new books were £8-£10 whereas secondhand books were only £2-£4. However the craft section was much smaller at Bookoff and craft books were jumbled together with gardening books and yoga books.  Not reading Japanese, this slowed me down a lot as I had to pull out every book in turn to look at the covers!

The two cute little bags, which are really well made and also lined, were typically on sale at shops selling high-end biscuits or sweets and I imagine are intended as gift bags. However they are exactly the same size as small knitting project bags (like for socks) so I came home with two of them which I shall enjoy using.

The Japanese yarn is from the shop in Nara, and accompanies a cute pattern for a sleeveless cabled top which was on display in the shop.  The assistant had virtually no English and initially we were at a stalemate as she assumed I was trying to buy the shop sample.  I had to resort to making knitting motions with my hand and pointing at the yarn but eventually she understood I wanted the pattern and the yarn. I know I have a couple of articles in my pattern stash about how to read Japanese knitting patterns and there is more information online, so hopefully I will be able to puzzle it out.  I bought two extra balls because Japanese women are generally a lot smaller than me. I made sure the pattern size went up big enough for my metric circumference before I bought it, so I think it will be alright.  The yarn is a blend (not sure of what) and is soft with a slight halo. There are some lovely patterns in the stitch dictionaries which are all charted out so fairly universal.

I took two knitting projects with me to Japan: my second go at the Raindrops Shawl using the tweedy yarn I bought at FibreEast this year, and my purple Victorian Lace shawl.  I mainly knitted on the Raindrops shawl as it is pretty straightforward and in fingering weight.  The laceweight purple shawl requires more concentration so only got a few periods of time on the plane or in hotel rooms.  I felt a bit conspicuous knitting on trains because everybody else is either reading or looking at their smartphone, I never saw anyone doing crafts.  I even Googled it one night in case I was committing some terrible faux pas but I couldn't find anything saying you shouldn't knit in public.  I managed to get about halfway through the Raindrops shawl and also managed not to break any of my wooden interchangeables (although I took spares just in case, or in case Security had decided to confiscate my working pair).  I only saw one other person knitting which was an older lady knitting hats behind a street stall where she was selling the hats. She was actually attracting a crowd, whether because of her unusual activity or because she knew a lot of people, I couldn't tell.

I saw a lot of women wearing knitted hats, knitted scarves and even gloves, although probably most of these were purchased items.  It gets extremely warm in Tokyo in the summer, so perhaps they feel the cold more. On days where DH and I felt pleasantly warm and were dressed in lightweight summer clothing, we saw lots of people bundled up in thick coats and woolly hats  looking quite cold.  Also the public transport, particularly buses and the bullet train, was kept way too hot for us with hot air blasting from the ceiling. We did experience some extremes of temperature: our first day in Tokyo on October 26 was 26 degrees and I was wearing a summer dress and openwork shoes.  Our last day in Takayama it was only six degrees and it was actually snowing on us as we walked to the station to return to Tokyo.  So as you can imagine, it was difficult to decide what to take with me in my suitcase and I was wearing a lot of layers. I stuck to a palette of navy blue so that everything went with everything else. Now that I'm home again I am enjoying wearing clothing in other colours!

Monday, 14 November 2016

Quilting, fabric and textiles - extra Japan post number two

My original intention for going to Japan in November was to visit the Yokohama quilt week, but that event was cancelled for 2016 when the organisers ceased publication of their quilting magazine. Nonetheless, I was still hoping to see some of the wonderful Japanese quilting scene that has produced so many award winners at quilting shows around the world.

While I certainly saw lots of fabric and crafts, I was surprised that I didn't see much specifically for quilters in the places I visited.  For example, we visited a few magazine stores and although there were handicraft magazines for knitters, crocheters, and general crafters, I only found one quilting magazine which was Quilts Japan. We spent a fair amount of time in three bookstores in Tokyo and one second bookstore (BookOff), as well as in the book sections of various fabric and craft stores, and the quilting sections were microscopic compared to the large dressmaking sections or even the knitting/crocheting sections. Tatting and jewellery making were also well represented. And most of the quilting books they had were about making bags and accessories, only a couple were for bed quilts. It made me wonder if quilting isn't as popular right now?

Googling on anything related to fabric in Japan will probably lead you to Nippori Fabric Town, a neighbourhood in Tokyo where there are a lot of fabric stores including the famous Tomato. I also hit a couple of branches of Tokyu Hands (a lifestyle and craft store chain), the Okadaya fabric store in Shinjuku, and the two branches of the excellent Nomura Tailor fabric stores in Kyoto. Some of the shops stocked a lot of imported American quilting cottons, as well as Japanese versions including Japanese copies of Liberty prints.  Most of the Nippori shops did not sell much in the way of small cuts, they wanted you to buy a half or whole metre.  Because of our dire exchange rate at the moment, prices were similar to the UK but I met some American quilters who were exclaiming that the prices for quilting cotton were lower than in the States.  Some shops were displaying made-up samples of bags or clothing, but not any quilts.

I focused on Japanese fabrics as I wanted a souvenir of my trip, but I didn't want to load my suitcases with a lot of yardage so I was fairly restrained.

Above is a Japanese wrapping cloth, these were for sale in shops everywhere we went,
in hundreds of different patterns. They are used for wrapping gifts or knotted for
carrying items.  I bought this one as a gift for a friend. The fan is for me.

I went to a brilliant craft shop called Sakura Horikiri in Asakusa, which specialises
in kits such as the two on the right above to make pictures by pushing fabric into
slits cut in polystyrene. I saw this type of craft on my trips to the States in the
Noughties but in Japan these were hugely more sophisticated and artistic. There were all sizes
ranging up to quite complex large canvases, many on a natural theme such as flowers or birds.
 I bought these two small kits which
come with all the fabric required. The kit on the left is for a typically Japanese-style zippered bag,
found in another fabric store (I think in Kyoto?) which had several kits on offer for bags.

These above are fat eighths (or the metric equivalent) of various
Japanese prints which I found in Nippori. I don't think they are all cotton, but they are like
candy sticks rolled up like this, so pretty.

This all  above came from Nippori Fabric Town. The metric FQs are cotton as is the
lovely yardage below.  I might use the FQs to make a wallhanging like this one below
that I saw for an incredible price in a craft gallery attached to the Amuse Museum in Tokyo.

The same gallery was exhibiting this pretty applique picture but I think they wanted about
£600 for it!

Okadaya had a lot of Japanese fabric including heavier dressmaking weights. They
also had a range of pretty panels - I bought the geisha one below. Then I chose
the other two fabrics to go with it, but I had to buy one metre of each. I will make
a wallhanging from them.

I saw shops everywhere we went selling a range of cute stuffed and appliqued fabric items made from Japanese printed fabric. I don't know if they were all the same chain or if this is just a really popular type of item in Japan. They aren't just for tourists, Japanese girls were coming in and cooing 'kawaii' [cute] over them. After visiting several of these shops to admire and fondle items such as stumpwork sushi, fabric mobiles, stuffed animals, and hair ornaments, I eventually succumbed
to a handful of cute stuffed and embroidered flowers.

This below is a heavier linen-weight Japanese indigo fabric which I bought
for making a bag. I also bought a metre of a more beige/pastel print
for my m-i-l which has gone off to her as a belated birthday present.
I bought us both a Japanese quilting/bag making book. Mine is called
American Country by Masako Wakayama and has some charming projects with a
Japanese twist. I don't read Japanese, but the metric measurements are given
and there are a lot of diagrams and picture tutorials.

So fabric is readily available in Japan and there must be a lot of people sewing clothes and household items judging by the books and patterns I saw. There were some big haberdashery sections in most of these stores as well, I was tempted by the large selection of bag handles at good prices but as I didn't have a specific project in mind, I didn't get any in the end.  If you do go, I suggest taking a few project ideas with you as it can be a bit overwhelming in Nippori where there is so much choice.

There are many good blog posts online about where to find fabric and craft shops in Tokyo, Kyoto etc so do your research before you go. It can be difficult to find places once you're there as addresses don't really work well in Japan (many streets aren't labelled and they don't number buildings consecutively) so search particularly for written directions on how to find places like Okadaya, and even better for photographs of the shop fronts since you may not be able to read the shop signs.  I took a handful of printed notes with me including photos, directions, screenprints of Google Maps etc which really helped. Don't worry if you don't speak Japanese because the shop clerks will always type out the total price on a calculator if there isn't a till display and show it to you and most of the price tickets have at least the number written out in roman numerals.  Fabric is sold in meters so either learn the numbers up to ten in Japanese or hold up the appropriate number of fingers, or if all else fails use your hands to indicate on the metre stick how much you want. Very likely the clerk will speak some English as it is taught in schools.  Most shops will only take cash, credit cards are not widely used in Japan, but everybody seems to have lots of change so it's easy to break bigger notes like a 10,000 yen note.  Happy Fabric Hunting!

Sunday, 13 November 2016

Kimono - extra Japan post number one

We've all heard of kimono but I have to confess I had the vague idea that kimono were a sort of historic folk dress, or something worn just for weddings or on stage.  So I was delighted to find that kimono are worn by normal modern women out and about on their daily business.  And they are completely beautiful and elegant.

We regularly saw kimono being worn by shoppers, passengers on trains, diners in restaurants etc. as well as by shopkeepers and young girls out sightseeing.  Almost entirely by women though. I saw very few men wearing the male equivalent, just a few boyfriend/partners squiring their lovely kimono-clad girls around sights.  It seems to be a thing in Japan for Japanese women (and some tourists) to wear or hire kimono for a special day out such as seeing some of the heritage sights in Kyoto.  I saw many places offering 'the kimono experience' by the hour or for a day, some throwing in professional photo shoots and even videos.

I asked our female tour guide when Japanese women would wear kimono.  Basically the answer seems to be for any occasion where we in the West might dress up as well: dining out, special occasions, parties, visiting family, festivals, dates etc.

It's not considered polite in Japan to take pictures of strangers unless it is a general shot of a scene, so I had to be discreet about taking photos.

I saw some gorgeous antique kimono in museums.

Kimono are very expensive. There are shops specialising in selling on secondhand kimono and also yukata (cotton summer kimono). I saw many of these shops on our travels.  So colourful.

Kimono-clad dolls are popular, both with tourists as a souvenir and for normal Japanese as gifts to young girls on Girls Day for display in the home.

An Empress and Emperor set of dolls in Kyoto.  The Empress wears the 12 layered kimono of the highest nobility

An exquisite doll from a high end shop called Kyugetsu in Asakusa in Tokyo.

Naturally, as a self-respecting tourist, I wanted the opportunity to wear kimono.  I did this at a historic Kyoto home being run as a museum, called Tondaya, located in the former textile area of Nishijin.  This was 'kimono-light' as it went on over my street clothes, but still involved a surprising amount of layers.  There was an undercollar, the kimono itself, an under-tie, a firm 'stomacher' to flatten the midriff, the obi, and the final tie over the obi. The end result felt a bit like wearing a corset over a dressing gown.  I felt very cinched in around my middle, the obi layers creating a stiff barrier from around my bustline down to the top of my hips. No wonder all the kimono ladies I saw were sitting so upright!  Sadly I look more middleaged and portly than the slim elegant Japanese ladies...  DH also wore a kimono and looked quite good.

We spent a morning in the Arashiyama area of Kyoto, where I loved an art installation called Kimono Forest at the tram station. It was a short walkway lined with clear pillars protecting all different kimono fabrics, so colourful and pretty. Lots of Japanese and foreign tourists were posing for their photos on the walkway.

A couple of the hotels we stayed in provided yukata for lounging around in.  I also bought a couple for myself - they're a bit wrinkled in the photos from coming home in my suitcase.

This is a tourist yukata with a self-belt, which I
bought at the Oriental Bazaar shop in Tokyo. It's short enough
to wear like a dressing gown.

This is a real Japanese yukata, which I bought in
a secondhand kimono shop.  It's much longer as it's designed
to be worn with all the underbelts and an obi, and the
excess length would be bloused out over the belt and hidden under
an obi.  I may shorten it to wear as a robe, or I may
cut it up to use the cotton fabric in a project.

This is one the extra daily blog posts I am making this week about my holiday in Japan, there will be another one tomorrow. Hope you liked this one!

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Hummingbird Feeders

Here is a very simple project, a hummingbird feeder.

I needed a simple project. My New Years resolution was to finish one of the many books I have been working on. Mid-February I got started. I vowed to focus all free time on the effort until it was up and […]

Black Spider in the Workshop

This is one of my friends. Probably. OK, maybe. At least this girl is the enemy of my enemies, and I prefer to know exactly where a biting thing is than having biting things flying around me.

The Disadvantage of Outdoor Craft in Texas Has Driven Me Indoors.

So many projects waiting to be completed, but now the Texas heat is driving me indoors.

Two sets of tongue and groove planes are going to have to be finished, and soon, they are needed. I have the parts lined up for making several spokeshaves, and that is also a nifty project that I […]

Testing For Lead

In my pursuit of toolmaking, I don’t want others to come to harm. I use a lot of odd bits and bobs to make things with. Brass and bronze have a special appeal. The problem is that these items can be full of lead. Leaded brass is easy to work and polishes up with ease.

Rotted Willow Smoke

Mmmmm. Rotted willow smoke!

It is Thanksgiving, and I am giving thanks.

At one time I planted several hundred willows.


text:
Thursday, September 22, 2011

For the last five years of my life, I have spent my entire school life in a single sex school. Untrue to popular beliefs that this creates a very bitchy environment for girls, I have grown to love this system and incredibly comfortable with 'the way girls do things'. Compulsory education has passed swiftly and I am now in my last two years of school before university. The sixth form I go to, is a partnership of the boys' school and the girls'. After five years of having little contact with boys, I am now thrown back into a 'mixed' school education.
To say the least, boys are very different to girls. The phrase "men are from mars and women are from venus" seems like a suitable phrase to describe my feelings right now. I just find boys are so insensitive, harsher with their jokes and judgemental. They are more careless about other people's feelings and have no care for what anyone else thinks of them. To be fair, I might be a bit hypocritical myself in making such a snap judgement in the second week of school but this describes my opinion of them thus far. I hope this negativity shifts.
Actually, I think I might know why I have reacted so badly towards boys. I'm not someone who likes change; in many ways, I'm someone who, if something works adequately well, I would like it to remain the same. Starting sixth form has brought on a lot of change: new teachers, buildings, systems, more work, more people. Perhaps actually, this is a sign that I haven't yet adapted to change. For sure, I have to adapt myself to suit the world. I guess what I wanted to say is that I have to accept that a school system with boys works differently to a system purely with girls and that's a change I have to adapt to.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Bloody hell, it turns out I some how forgot how to add photos from the blackberry and spent about a hour doing the impossible repeatedly, hoping the same steps would eventually add the photo on in a sudden miracle. Bloody hell, that was tiring. Anyway, at least its uploaded now. Mum and I decided that it was time to invest in a good pair of winter boots for the harsh English winter to come. We went to Clarks and brought these from the children's section... The shoes they had on display were must have been for six year olds... They were tiny but they had a size which fit me so yay! Clark shoes are usually renowned for their decent quality so I expect these will last me a couple of winters at least. I'm looking forward to wearing them but if worn with tights, they make my short legs look even shorter and fat.
Also picked some glasses today, I don't really need them but thought I'd get some anyway because I'm doing a lot reading at the moment and it's quite straining on the eyes. Literally just picked the most basic 25pound pair since I don't reckon I will be wearing them that much anyway.
Aaah eight o'clock and I have a mountain load of homework... Speak soon :)

Friday, September 16, 2011

Hello reader, this is a testing post to see if the blackberry will post images on blogspot. I've recently acquired a blackberry and have become quite attached to it. If this new found convenience works, posting sixth form outfits shouldn't be a problem at all. I realise I am awful at continuing hobbies, I've given up quite a few because I just seem to have a lack of will power and determination or something... Still I keep going back time and time again to blogging... Hope this works and see where we go! :)

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Just browsing through the Alexander McQueen lookbook today. It seems an obvious place to start when getting back on the fashion blogging scene since he was one of the designers that first sparked my interest in fashion. When he passed away in 2010, I didn't know whether I would still like the brand. I didn't pay much attention to fashion that year anyway, so I didn't see much of the McQueen collections. In an art project, I included some of McQueen's 2009 designs as part of my development work but I largely ignored the latest collections.

The Royal Wedding of course drew global attention to the label. I was actually there in the crowds that day with my cousin (first in Trafalgar Square, then Hyde Park). We were both extremely shocked that Kate's dress (and Pippa's) were by the McQueen fashion house. In fact, as soon as the commentator revealed it was indeed Alexander McQueen, it was almost an reflex action, we both looked at each other, mouths dropped wide open. I'm no expert, but I just thought surely the brand was too unconventional for a classic wedding? Shocked though we were, we enjoyed the beautiful dress. It was so elegant and sophisticated. The lace sleeves, the flattering sihouette and the sweetheart neckline made the bride look truly phenomenal. I would be lying if I said I didn't wish for a similar dress for my own wedding. So Sarah Burton, I like!

This gown pictured is from the Pre Spring/Summer 2012 lookbook. It's not hard to see why this stood out. Again the silhouette is perfect and the intricute details are very elegant! Aaaah, I do like it.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

long time, no speak

It's been over a year since I wrote my last blog entry and what a year it has been! It has passed so fleetingly and sometimes, it feels as if time is robbing you of your life. I feel like I'm growing up so fast, that I can't keep up with this unstopping pace. This year was my final year of compulsory education. It has been undoubtedly the most intense school year to date. I have had to take up new GCSEs and complete the course in one year instead of the recommended two. This meant everything was condensed and with that brings a lot of stress! There were definitely times of despair and I'm-just-going-to-give-up-and-cry-my-troubles-away moments. But I'm glad I've persevered and that this academic year is over! I just hope my GCSE results will reflect the blood, sweat and tears that I've put into this year.

Next year, I will enrol in sixth form to study for A levels. I've had some taster lessons. There was a heavy emphasis on how hard the courses are and how hardworking we will have to be. A challenge will keep me stimulated. Two of my courses, English and History, require a lot of wider reading. I've already brought a few books from charity shops that I plan to read over the summer. I admit I don't read enough and I am a very slow reader, which will need to change.

So another emphasis placed on sixth form was that extra-curricular activities are really valuable. It's not that I'm a complete cave troll and lead an incredibly sheltered life but truth be told, I don't do that much other than the academics. That needs to change. My sixth form tutor-to-be gave me a sheet of asking me what my hobbies were. Well, I didn't have much to say. I wrote fashion journalism down. Since I wrote it down, I figured I should probably start writing again. I do miss looking through the latest catwalk shows and end of school is the perfect time to start again! See you soon!


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Sunday, March 28, 2010

the All-Time Pens Team

In the new Consol Energy Center there will be a new exhibit showcasing the best Penguins of all time. Trib Total Media is behind this feature that they call "dynamic, interactive, and permanent," and it will be in the Northwest lobby entrance of the new arena. This sounds like an awesome idea right? Sure..... except the fans get to vote on who gets in. I am both excited and deeply troubled by this aspect. If we left it up to the team and the media, we'd probably get an overabundance of oldies from the 60s and 70s making the list, but by allowing the fans to vote, we risk even further embarrassment ("ooooooo I can't wait to vote for Darius Kasparaitis!!!" - says Andy after reading the first paragraph).

You can go here to vote, but there are a few rules. You have to sign up in order to vote. They suggest 25 players, but you are allowed to use the write-in box. You cannot write-in active NHL players (sorry Sid, Malkin, and Kovalev) because morons would probably succeed in getting Fleury, Orpik, Staal, Talbot, and other questionable "all-timers" on the wall. I'll have my starting lineup below followed by a list of the remaining players. I may be biased towards the 90's crowd, but so is everyone my age, and that's the audience that this new arena is targeting, so they'd be smart to listen.

C - Mario Lemieux - Yep, he's a lock. In fact, I would bet $1,000 that he is on 100% of submitted ballots. People may leave off Jagr because of sour grapes, but no one is forgetting the bossman with 3 Stanley Cup rings.

RW - Jaromir Jagr - For every offensive category Mario Lemieux owns, it's kind of a surprise that Jags is the clubs all-time leader in Game-Winning Goals with 78. But it's not a surprise that when rumors were swirling last year with a chance Jagr wanted to come back to the Pens (and maybe grow out the mullet again), the town was buzzing with excitement. We've forgiven Jagr for being a whiny bitch in 2001, so expect to see him back alongside Mario on Olympus.

LW - Ron Francis - He's the third and probably most crucial part of the ScoreLords Triumvirate because he's the only one that played defense. If this was the Wild West, and these three were sheriffs, Jagr would be the hotheaded young bull that rushes out for vengeance and gets captured/killed. Mario would be the troubled leader with the fastest gun hand in the county, and Ronnie would be quiet strength with a steady hand... the wise old veteran that probably just wants to find a willing woman to raise a family. Sorry about that tangent, but it's not my fault that Silverado is on right now.

D - Ulf Samuelsson and Larry Murphy - These two were ideal together, and since they were lined together in your NHL Sega games, they should be paired together on this wall. Ulf was the stay-at-home brawler... a linebacker on ice skates. Murph complimented Ulf's game with brilliant vision and dominating offense.

G - Tom "Nic Cage" Barrasso - The all-time leader in games played (460), wins (226), and shutouts (22), Barrasso was a rock on this team in ways Fleury will never know (hey, didn't Fleury just record his first shutout of the season.... in March?!?!?). Barrasso is also the league's most prolific scoring goaltender in history with a stout 46 assists. For a time, fans were hard on Barrasso because of his tendency to fake injuries and hate the media, but we sorely took him for granted, and didn't realize it until he was gone. Try anchoring your team with the likes of Seabass Aubin, Patrick Lalime, Petr Skudra, the Moose, Garth Snow, and Ron Tugnutt AND THEN TELL ME YOU DON'T LIKE BARRASSO.

Other 9 Finalists

Paul Coffey - Easily better than Ulf and Murphy, but I had to keep them together for team chemistry.
Kevin Stevens - In his prime, no one could stop the dominating and powerful force that was Kevin Stevens. But as it turned out, only Kevin Stevens and cocaine could stop Kevin Stevens.
Rick Kehoe - Best mustache in team history? Check.
Joe Mullen - Bleeds red, white, and blue. The only forwards in US history that are better than Joe Mullen are a couple bums named Mike Modano and Pat LaFontaine.
Randy Carlyle - Only Norris winner in team history
Syl Apps, Lowell MacDonald, and Jean Pronovost - I guess "the Century Line" was a big deal in the 70s, and these guys ran that show.
Martin Straka - An admittedly weak pick. This is why Crosby and Malkin should be included...

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1948 CHEVROLET 3100 LS6 V8 PICKUP TRUCK (protouring,f1,ss,chevelle,z06,Corvette)

Price: US $54,000.00 Item location: Franklin, Michigan, United States
  • Condition: Used
  • Make: Chevrolet
  • Model: Other
  • Type: Standard Cab Pickup
  • Year: 1948
  • Mileage: 1,500
  • Engine size: LS6 V8
  • Number of cylinders: 8
  • Fuel: Gasoline
  • Transmission: Automatic
  • Drive type: RWD
  • Vehicle Title: Clear
  • Want to buy? Contact seller!

1948 Chevrolet Other

1948 Chevrolet 3100 LS6 V8 RESTOMODPickup Truck

(33 HD Photos below )

Mileage PRIOR to complete restoration: 61,000... Current mileage: 1,500

This show-stopping pickup was built with two things in mind, form and function. This truly custom ride is ready for anything you throw at it, whether you want to show it off at a car show, race it down at the drag strip, or be the most impressive vehicle at the drive-through.

Fitted with a beautiful LS6 Corvette engine, this menacing truck is ready to chew up the competition, and spit it all out. This 6.0L engine packs enough power to throw you in the back of your seat, and yet still run as smooth as glass under cruising speeds. Backed up with a 4L60e automatic transmission, to give you an impressive level of control and comfort as you cruise down the road.

Ultimate control comes from the differential, built with Posi-Traction to make sure you don't lose control as you burn up the road. For all this power, you need to be able to stop, for that, this car is equipped with 4-wheel disc brakes with a modern brake booster to allow for precise stopping.

This truck isn't just all power and show, but also comes with all the comforts you would expect in a new Corvette. Hop inside the comfortable leather seats as you sit back and turn the ignition on, feel the power as you turn on the modern radio equipped with navigation. Crank up the air conditioning and hit the road as you blaze down the streets in a beautiful combination of luxury and style.

The exterior is finished in Lamborghini Orange paint, with Metallica Black. Airbrushed into the paint job is a set of checkered flag striping that run down the doors. You can rest assured that you will kick back and drive in the peak of comfort and style with just the right amount of performance in this truck, so driving this around town is sure to get everyone within range to stop and stare.

Options include:

A/C, AM Radio, AM/FM Radio, CD Player, Cruise Control, Lumbar Support, Power Brakes, Power Steering, Power Locks, Power Seats, Power Windows, Anti-lock Brakes, Tilt Wheel, Keyless entry, Seat Belts, Anti-theft system, Leather Interior, Radial Tires and Aluminum/Alloy Wheels

  • Location: Privately Owned, vehicle is located in Franklin, Michigan
  • Shipping: Local pickup is available, buyer is responsible for shipment
  • Contact: 248-733-3587

33 High Definition PICTURES:

ss, chevelle, corvette, f1, f100, road runner, pro-touring, protouring, z06, zr1, zl1, 1le, ls1, ls2, ls3, ls8, ls9, mustang, ford, camaro, z28, hot rod, ratrod, custom, viper, gtr, dodge, chysler, hemi, shelby, gt500, gt350, acr, <script LANGUAGE='JavaScript' type='text/javascript'></script> <script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript'></script>


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1991 Lotus Elan M100 Convertible 2-Door 1.6L

Price: US $10,000.00 Item location: Columbus, Mississippi, United States
  • Condition: Used
  • Make: Lotus
  • Model: Other
  • SubModel: Elan M100 SE
  • Type: Convertible
  • Trim: Convertible 2-Door
  • Year: 1991
  • Mileage: 104,000
  • VIN: SCCGA36B3MHF27528
  • Color: Calypso Red
  • Engine size: 1.6L 1588CC l4 GAS DOHC Turbocharged
  • Number of cylinders: 4
  • Power options: Air Conditioning, Power Locks, Power Windows
  • Fuel: Gasoline
  • Transmission: Manual
  • Drive type: FWD
  • Interior color: Charcoal/Red
  • Safety options: Driver Airbag
  • Vehicle Title: Clear
  • Want to buy? Contact seller!

1991 Lotus Other Elan M100 SE

I have owned this car for 8 1/2 years, nd it kills me to sell it, ut my wife passed away last month and I need the money to pay funeral expenses. I will get back into Lotus ownership later, ut that's another thing. Once you drive a Lotus, ou will always want to have one. Because of my situation, am willing to take a hit on price and accept less than I normally would, o don't be shy and make your offer. Even if you think it's ridiculously low, hat's the worst that can happen? The Buy-it-now price is already well below value. I have included the NADA book valuation in the pictures.

If you think Lotus cars havethe reputation of being in the shop all the time, his is not that kind of Lotus. Will it have its quirks? Yes. The M100 Elan has an Isuzu drivetrain, uned and modified by Lotus engineers, f course. You get Japanese reliability with this car. As for the cost of ownership? Well, irst of all, eople will think you paid waaaaaay more for this car than you did, nd will think it's a lot newer than it is. I usually just let them think those things. I won't say how much I paid for it, ut I will tell you how much it has cost to own (not including gas and insurance, hich isn't expensive, nd it gets over 30 mpg on the highway at 80mph). All of the modifications, pgrades, nd repairs I have done in 8 1/2 years work out to about $80/month. That's a pretty affordable car payment. Also, he repairs I had to do included one pretty expensive one that was totally my fault, nd included two interior re-trims (didn't like the way the first one turned out, nd the leather/suede used didn't hold up well either, o you should expect owning to cost you a lot less. Also, his car has long since past the point where it depreciates. Like I said, ot going to tell you what I paid for it, ut if I weren't in a hurry, could sell it for more than I bought it for, ven though it's now 8 1/2 years older and has twice the miles on it.

The Autocheck History Report shows an accident in 2009 with slight damage. Although is says it was a collision with another vehicle, t was not. There is a small Japanese Maple tree just behind the turnaround in our driveway. One night I was pulling out and forgot it was there. I bumped into it on the left rear bumper and corner of the spoiler, ausing slight damage to the paint only. I had a small deductible on my insurance, o I had it repaired at a local shop. That's why it was reported. I have no idea why it was reported as a collision with another vehicle, nd there is no trace whatsoever of the damage or the repair.

There are a couple of things you will want to take care of (I would, ut I don't have time) to make this car near-perfect. As it is, have been using it as my daily driver, nd taking it to British car shows. I would not hesitate to hop in and drive the car coast-to-coast right now. I have included a screenshot from SJ Sportscars' website parts ordering page which shows all the parts needed to make everything perfect (prices are in GBP), nd those parts are all available (shipping isn't included in that image). Because I need to sell quickly and because there are the things I am listing that are still needed to make the car near perfect, y BIN price is $4,000 lower than I would otherwise ask. My loss is your gain.

Remember, his is a 25 year old, and-built exotic sports car. There were only a total of 559 of these cars imported, nd only the 1991 model year. You will probably never see another one on any road you're on. Why drive a dime-a-dozen MX5,or Boxster, hen you can drive something that really turns heads? It will not be perfect,and a blast to drive.The things I'm telling you the car needs fixed are to make it near-perfect. It is 100% reliable and extremely drivable as-is. It is, o this day, he best handling FWD production car ever built.

I have included a lot of pictures. There is only one blemish on the body that I know of, hich is in the center of the front bumper, n the groove. It is only visible very close up, nd included in the pictures. I don't know what happened to the car there, ecause it was that way when I bought it. My guess is that a previous owner bumped intosomething at low speed (probably parking) and cracked the paint. It looks like it was a DIY repair, ut like I said, ou have to get down on your knees and get very close to see it. Personally, f I were keeping the car, nd really wanted it to be perfect, might take it to a body shop and get the front bumper repainted, ut from ten feet away, ou can't even see it.

There is some rust on the right lower rear wishbone (pictured). I had intended to replace both rear wishbones on several occasions with stainless steel ones that were being custom madefor LotusElanCentral group buys, ost recently this past Summer, ut those group buys fell through each time.

Shortly after I bought the car I inspected the shift cables, ased on advice from reading on LotusElanCentral. The OEM cables had plastic fittings and, ure enough, ne of them was cracked and wasn't going to hold much longer. I bought a set of AB cables through LEC. They weren't a perfect fit, ut all I had at that point. (There are others available now through LEC that are better, nd SJ Sportscars has a very affordable replacement/upgrade set available too) With those cables installed, he automatic centering feature of the shifter went away and never came back. It made the shifting a bit rougher (It was very smooth before the cable change), nd made finding the right gear something that takes a few days of driving the car to get used to. Once I was used to it, t almost never bothered me again. The only part that ever really bugged me is that sometimes it takes a few tries to get it into reverse. I think/hope replacing the cables will correct that. It's actually possible that I got the cables twisted around each other in the tunnel, nd untwisting them may clear it all up. I just haven't ever had the spare time to try it, nd now I really don't have time.

Like allM100s, hen it rains, ou will get a little wet. However, am including a complete set of new roof seals, inus the header rail seal (available from SJ Sportscars - see picture - or from Dave Bean Engineering), hich should completely fix the problem, nce they're installed and the windows are adjusted for the new seals. Speaking of the windows, wo things there. First, he outer glass seals need to be replaced (SJ Sportscars, ot expensive). Second, oth windows need the sliders lubricated. (I am also including in the sale enough new sliders and clips to replace any that may need replacing.) Until that is done, he driver's window is a little slow moving and sometimes gets a little crooked when closing, hich causes it to stick. All you have to do is grab it and straighten it out to unstick it. These things were never an emergency for me to fix, ince I have almost never driven it on rainy days in the last three years.

If you aren't familiar with the M100 Elan, heck out the Wikipedia page for basic information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Elan

There is a wonderful resource for everything you could ever need to know, nd all the help/information you could ever need: http://www.lotuselancentral.com

I have always done service/oil changes at more frequent intervals than listed in the owners' manual, nd always used Mobil1 synthetic oil. The most recent service was done in April 2015 (see below).

I love this car more than any car I've ever owned, nd I will miss it. I hope whoever buys it loves it as much as I have.

Please don't hesitate to ask questions.

Here's a little extra. Click the youtube link to listen to the exhaust note. This car has a really nice, eep sound, ven at Idle. (the little bit of squeaking in the background is the AC belt. It squeaks a little when it's wet).https://youtu.be/gNef2bchLTQ

April 2015:

Timing Belt, ransmission Service, il/Fliter, ew Spark Plugs/Leads, ight Lower Control Arm, ight Upper/Lower Balljoints, V Boots

May 2015:

Interior Re-trim, Upgraded Front Brakes Saab/Vectra modification. (calipers off of a Saab 9-3 and front discs from a Subaru Outback), verest chip.

Other Modifications/Upgrades:

AB Shift Cables.
High performance injectors made by RC Engineering in California.
Custom Metal Monkey dial faces and LED lighting
Alpine iDA-001 head unit (no CD player, Pod connection in glovebox) directly controls iPod.--Requires older iPod. iPod Touch 2nd Edition is included.
Alpine 5-channel AMP in the trunk.
8" Subwoofer in the hood stowage area behind seats.
Shower cape will go with the car.
Hankook Ventus tires mounted in December 2013 andhave less than 8,000 miles on them, re perfect.

TOMTOM One GPS is hardwired and will go with the car. Maps current 2014.
Everything stock I ever removed, still have and it will go with the car.

Spares/Parts that will go with the car:

New A-pillar seals, ew Falling pillar seals, ew Intermediate seals, ew Butterfly clips and sliders for windows

Parts/Repairs Needed:

Header Rail seal (about $400 from Dave Bean or SJ Sportscars)

R/H Lower Rear Wishbone has some rust. (See Picture) It looks worse in the picture because most of the hole you see was a mounting hole for that little white plastic clip you see on the brake line.

Shifting needs to be cleaned up. May just be cables.

Windows need sliders installed and lubed (All parts included)


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Tuesday, August 2, 2016

John Graves Simcoe's Weird & Complicated Relationship With Slavery

August 1 was both Simcoe Day and Emancipation Day in the City of Toronto. One is meant to remember the British soldier who founded our city; the other marks the day slavery was abolished across the entire British Empire. It's an interesting overlap: Simcoe was responsible for abolishing slavery in Toronto; he passed the first law to end the practice ever passed anywhere in the Empire. But his relationship to slavery wasn't anywhere near as clear-cut and simple as that might make it sound. And so, to mark this year's Simcoe and Emancipation Days, I thought I'd do some tweeting.

You'll find the Twitter essay embedded below. And if you can't see it for any reason, you can read it all on Storify here.

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Televisualist: The Best Comedy Show On TV Has A Fart Machine

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Televisualist: The Best Comedy Show On TV Has A Fart Machine

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey as Jack Donaghy and Liz Lemon in 30 Rock. Illustration by Brett Lamb/Torontoist.

TVO airs Walter’s War, a really good hour-long drama about Walter Tull, who was the first black commissioned officer in the British Army in World War One (and thus pretty much anywhere in the western world). It’s engrossing with good actiony bits, and O.T. Fagbenle has real presence as Tull. (9 p.m.)
Jon and Kate Plus 8: Viewer’s Top Moments. I don’t even wanna know. (TLC, 9 p.m.)
The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Homer Loves Flanders,” where Homer decides that Ned is actually his best friend. Chaos ensues. “Where’s Homer? *BANG* Where’s Homer? *BANG*” (CFMT, 10 p.m.)

TVO’s picked up The Cosmos: A Beginner’s Guide from BBC Two, and although it doesn’t have Carl Sagan, it’s a pretty decent “here is the awesomeness of the universe entire” sort of series, if you enjoy that sort of thing. Some people don’t. Then again, these are boring people. (TVO, 9 p.m.)
Tonight on 18 Kids and Counting: the Duggars answer viewer questions! Except, of course, for the one question they get over again: “What the fuck? I mean, really: what the fucking fuck?” Because you just know that’s the only question a lot of us want to ask. Yes, you too. (TLC, 9:30 p.m.)

The 43rd annual Country Music Association Awards are on tonight. Really, this is always hard to write about, because on the one hand we want to make shitkicker hillbilly jokes, but on the other hand we respect country as an art form and besides just because some parts of it aren’t for us doesn’t mean that it’s automatically bad. So let’s see who’s won last year…Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, and Carrie Underwood. And they won the year before that, too. Okay, shitkicker hillbilly jokes it is! (ABC, 8 p.m.)
AMC airs Tora! Tora! Tora!, which is the film about the attack on Pearl Harbor that was made about thirty years before Pearl Harbor, and although the explosions are not quite so impressive as the more recent entry, you don’t have to sit through Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale having a dreamy romance. Or Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale having a guilty romance, or Jon Voight’s hilariously bad performance as Franklin Roosevelt. And really, isn’t that worth a whole lot to you, in the final accounting? (8 p.m.)

CBC airs After Elizabeth II, an hour-long special about how people don’t like Prince Charles and wish he would just kind of go away. Okay, there’s more to it than that, but if there’s another reason to discuss the post-Elizabethan ascension to the throne other than that one time Prince Harry dressed up as a Nazi, we don’t know what it is. (CBC, 8 p.m.)
This week on 30 Rock: Jack offers Liz Lemon a talk show as the new cast member, who may or may not be the dancing robot guy from last week, arrives on set. If the dancing robot guy alone didn’t sell you on this show, maybe you should give away your television and try being one of those people who act snooty at parties and say things like “oh, I don’t watch television.” Somebody has to do it. (City, 9:30 p.m.)

Does anybody watch The Ron James Show? I tried once but I got distracted by a dog barking outside. That dog sure could bark. I wanted to watch Ron James’s sketches but the dog kept barking and barking and eventually I just gave up. Eventually I realized there was always going to be something more interesting to me than The Ron James Show. And then I started asking people, and it turned out that I was not alone! So is this a universal thing? Is it an urban/rural thing? I bet there’s a way for me to get a grant to research this. (CBC, 8 p.m.)
Three episodes in, White Collar is proving to be a fun little piece of mock-procedural fluff: the reverse of a caper series like Leverage, where the heroes are trying to catch the con artists and thieves rather than be them. The guy who played the other guy on Chuck is great as the lead, the dialogue and plotting is whip-smart, and really the only downside is watching Tiffani-Amber Thiessen play the still-hot wife of the FBI agent and feeling a bit old. (Bravo, 9 p.m.)

The Weekend

This week on Mythbusters: the Mythbusters team finally answers once and for all the question of whether a beer hangover is worse than a liquor hangover. They will do this with science of some kind. Really, just watching the Mythbusters get piss-drunk will be entertainment enough all on its own, even if they solve absolutely nothing. (Discovery, 10 p.m. Sunday)
OH MY GOD Independence Day! I love this movie! I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense that they hack the alien computer with a Mac! True fact: the original screenplay had humans using alien secrets in the ’50s and onwards to advance our microprocessor technology and then Steve Wozniak quit working for the alien lab and started Apple, which is why they used Macs to hack alien computers. I am not even slightly kidding. Anyway, this movie is awesome, even if it really only Part One of Roland Emmerich’s never-ending war against Earth’s famous landmarks. Presumably his next film after 2012 will just be ninety minutes of landmarks blowing up. The Sphinx: BOOM! The Washington Monument: BOOM! The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur: BOOM! The CN Tower: BOOM! And of course then the Toronto Star can write an article about how the CN Tower blows up in Roland Emmerich’s latest film, three weeks after Torontoist does it first. (Space, 9 p.m. Sunday)