At some previous point in time, two children were born to Hilda and Dulbert Cramp. The children were called Horrid and Special. Hilda was not particularly good at mothering. Dulbert was prone to excessive television watching, and didn't like children. But having known nothing different, Horrid and Special got by just fine, really, and although not what you would call precocious, or witty, or handsome children, were quite okay. (To be continued.)

Girly Brain is back

It's not as though I went away. I've been occupied with some other things. First off though, I am going to attempt posting this, to see if it still loads properly, given that the email address that it's connected to, no longer exists. Hang on, back in a few.

I Clean Gutters

I have cleaned the rain gutters. I feel good about it. A chore I have been putting off for two years, at least.

Last year for Christmas, my ex got me a 20' extension ladder. Yes, I liked it. It has been unused till now.
 
On Sunday, I got the ladder from the garage. It was more cumbersome, and heavier than I thought it might be. Laid it down on the lawn, to see how it works.
 
Eyeing up the wires that extend from some tall pole in the alley to where I need to place the ladder, and trusting that the wires are for telephone and cable, rather than electrical wires, I drag/carry the ladder to the first length of rain gutter. I have a thing about spiders and crawly critters, enough to power me off a high ladder if one should happen to skitter suddenly up my arm or whatever, so I am trying to be wary, and also nonchalant at the same time. If you show fear to a spider, it knows it has the upper hand. The ladder seems steady on it's corrugated feet, and the first gutter goes just fine.
 
There are also more rain gutters than I thought - I had not earlier noticed the ones under the shake-out, nor the extra ones on the front of the house, which intersect with the long ones. Hmmm.
 
And the ladder does not want to cooperate as well in the next spot. There is a good one inch gap under one of the ladder feet, and no way to position it to avoid this. It slides easily to one side of the gutter, and I picture myself falling from that height, ladder landing on me. What to do... I need a block of wood, I think, to shim up the gap. There is no magic piece of wood in the garage, to accomplish this, but I do have books sitting out there, (that remain unpacked since I moved in). A book would be the perfect size to wedge under the ladder. (I know, I know - but I have to work with what I have at hand...)
 
On the top stack of books: Steinbeck - The Winter of Our Discontent. I can't do it. I love Steinbeck. Next book: Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath. No can do. Then: Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. Although those two are both paperbacks, I still cannot bring myself to use them in such a way. Below them, a book called Flaming Tree by Phyllis A Whitney. I will never read this again, if I ever did. Phyllis becomes my partner in the business of gutter cleaning. She looks like a nice woman, I think, as I set the leg of the ladder on her smiling face on the back dust jacket, and I really think she would be eager to help me. The book works like a charm.
 
The bugs and spiders are almost nonexistent, and all I have to do - since I have let the leaves and all sit in here composting for a couple years - is grab the weeds (yes, there are weeds growing in the gutters) and with the weeds comes this whole section of cake-like dirt/decaying vegetation/whatever, and then, the gutter is clean.
 
I did the back, and along the garage, and the front of the house. The ladder is now back in the garage, Phyllis is quietly awaiting next years cleaning, near the ladder. She is happily anticipating getting out again, I believe.
 

Dress A Girl Around The World

Ah, we step right into summer in Minny, with a hot, humid day reaching into a tornado warning evening. I do love a good storm. But no walk tonight, a little too green out for me. I turn up the tv so I can hear the weather, Hennepin County is under a tornado warning, and I would like to know if and when I actually do need to grab Kitty Vegas and head down to the basement.

In the meantime – a new volunteer sewing project. While the storm was brewing, I cut out and sewed together one of the dresses for the Dress A Girl Around The World project.

It’s a very simple premise: to ensure that every little girl in the world has at least one dress of her own. These dresses accompany missions groups to – everywhere. I’m including the website address here.

And it’s a very simple pattern called a pillow case dress. The idea being that you could up-cycle these dresses from a gently worn pillow case. However, cute fabric can be purchased very reasonably here, and I’m a textile lover anyway – I have a lot of fabric to use, and I’m happy to buy more as needed. I have nothing against up-cycling either, in fact, I appreciate when things are given a new life. Anyone who wants to is sure welcome to make their dresses from old pillow cases, I would just rather use new fabrics.

I also wondered about the simple pattern, and why both organizations that I planned to donate to (Dress A Girl Around The World and Little Dresses For Africa) ask for the pillow case style dress. However, the more I read about it, the more it made sense. Many of these dresses end up packed in a mission volunteer’s luggage, to be dispersed upon arriving at their destination. So they need to be lightweight, easy to pack and carry.

I hadn’t made one before, but the directions were very simple. If you don’t start with a pillow case, you basically make a simple tube dress (measurements and instructions are available from www.nancysnotions.com ;click on the link at the bottom of her website, called Creative Kindness). There are a number of different dress sizes you can make, from the same simple directions.

I made the version where you topstitch bias tape around the armholes, stitch a casing at the top front and back, and then thread either bias tape or ribbon through the casing. The ribbons tie into a bow at the shoulders, creating the top part of the armholes.

I will probably add a pocket or some other kind of trim to these dresses as I go, but for this first one, I mainly wanted to see just how to put it together.

Easy-peasy, very quick, and a lot of fun to make. These – along with my Spill Catcher project, will keep me busy for a while. Websites are below, if anyone wants to read more about these volunteer projects.

www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com

www.littledressesforafrica.com

A Breakup, A Breakout, A Break-in

It’s been sort of a hard week.

1.) The breakup: pretty much the usual, but a breakup does take the wind out of one’s sails. Sigh. There is no point in spending lots of time dwelling on this one, but suffice to say, it’s not the best way to start out the week. Double sigh, double sad. Yes, we're still friends.

2.) The breakout: on my face. Seriously. I’ve never been inclined to acne, but recently – wow. Apparently all the acne I never had in my life is starting now. Weirdness. I would bear no ill feelings toward it if it simply packed up and left today. I will say good-bye to it in a nice way, a lot like how the breakup went down.

3.) The break-in: So, Friday evening I arrived home from a long hard week at work, to find that my house had been broken into during the day, and burglarized. The back entry way door had been kicked in, and the house gone through, drawers open, cupboard doors open, stuff strewn around. Stuff taken. I can’t help but wonder what kind of a person can live with themself after stealing from people. I guess their conscience must be even smaller than their balls.

Among other things taken: my Mac Powerbook, which sits on a table on one side of my bed. (Not taken, a Dell laptop, sitting on the other side of the bed.) The lowlife took a very large jewelry box, which must have been quite cumbersome to carry, what with all the hinged doors and lid, and hanging necklaces, etc. The Dell PC would have been the better choice for the butthat to take, since I don’t have a lot of expensive jewelry. A giant box worth very little, and so awkward to carry. My iPod, which I’ll have to replace immediately because I use it while I walk the lake.

The worst for me, was the dark sinking realization that Miss Vegas Kitty was not in the house. I knew she must have escaped out the door somehow when the intruder came in or left. It gave me a terrible feeling of helplessness and doom. I was sure she was gone forever.

One of the officers who came over to check the house and write the report up, tried to reassure me by saying she might even be hiding somewhere in the house. But Kitty Vegas is far too socially inclined to hide from anyone. She would more likely be right there, following the thief around the house. Curious beyond curious.

After the officers left, I stood in the living room, feeling dazed and depressed, with the whole idea of Miss Vegas gone forever starting to sink in, and there was a knock at the door. One of the officers was standing there with her in his arms. He’d found her over near the neighbor’s house. It’s hard to express my relief and how happy I was to have her back, safe and sound.

(ps: my house is generally pretty dang clean, but I was planning to do laundry Friday night, so I had gathered it into a large heap and just left it on the floor in the middle of the hallway, which we all had to step over while walking through each room to list what had been taken. Nice. There was also the usual pile of bras and panties on my bedroom floor. In addition, since it was Friday, before I left work I had grabbed a couple bananas off my desk that I hadn’t eaten during the week. As I dropped them in my already full purse, I noticed they were just starting to turn rather brownish and spotty. And yes, there they were, in plain sight, two rotting bananas hanging out of my purse as I spoke in a dazed voice to the police. I can only assume and hope that they see much weirder stuff than that in other people’s homes.

I asked John to come over Friday night to see if he could fix the door at least temporarily so I could close and lock it, and stay in the house till it gets replaced. He was able to come over right away and do that. All my friends have been so supportive; I’ve been getting calls and texts and fb messages all weekend. I have the nicest friends and family. : )))))))))))) Thanks everyone. Greatly appreciated by yours truly.

My New Favorite Project

What better thing to do on a rainy spring weekend than a sewing project?

I had a couple different projects in mind; one was kid’s quilts, which I’ve made in the past. The quilts (and a small plush toy) end up with kids who need to be removed from a bad domestic situation, here in Minnesota.

Another project was making very simple girl’s dresses, which then get donated to an organization called Little Dresses for Africa. These dresses are taken along on missionary trips and are given to little girls there.

I had also recently seen some bibs for elderly patients online, and I really liked the idea of designing some that would look a little bit more like a blouse or shirt front and a little less like a bib. Maybe help an older person retain just a bit more dignity at a time in life when it’s sometimes hard to come by. Besides, I just love old people.

I emailed my friend, who works at a nursing home with elderly and Alzheimers patients, in the small town where I grew up, and she said they’d love to have some donated bibs.

I made a simple pattern; basically a rectangle shape big enough to cover a front body, with a Velcro back neck closure. I kept the lower corners square, instead of rounding them off, and added a little topstitched collar at the front neck, as well as a pocket, in keeping with the shirt look. No buttons, or ribbons, as these will need to be laundered a lot, and I didn’t want to add anything on that might come off in time.

I really only had fabric on hand for woman’s bibs, but I did pattern a pointed collar for the men’s version, and I’ll make some of those as soon as I get a chance to get out and pick up fabric that would be suitable for the men’s bibs. I will also make a smaller pocket on those, again more in keeping with the look of a shirt.

I got 11 of these done this weekend. They’re easy to put together, and take about 1 yard of fabric each. Hopefully I’ll have time to get a bunch more done before I go up north and drop off the first batch. Very fun project. (I'm not all excited about calling these things 'bibs', it seems kind of demeaning. I'll keep working on a better name...)

The origin of knitting goes way back. As you might imagine, knitting, in it's most basic form - is really just intertwined yarn or fiber, to create a piece of knitted fabric, formed to shape, by the stitch type and size, etc.

The oldest artifact with a knitted look is a type of sock, created in a process called Nalebinding, which seems to be a knit fabric made by combination of knitting and sewing. Looks dang hard, if you view the photo of the artifact.

So apparently, most histories of knitting place its origin somewhere in the Middle East, where it then spread to Europe by Mediterranean trade routes, and then to the Americas with the advent of European colonization.

The earliest known examples of knitting have been found in Egypt and cover a range of items, and include complex colorful wool fragments and indigo blue and white cotton stockings, which have been dated between the 11th and 14th centuries.

Much of this info is thanks to Wiki:
The earliest known knitted items in Europe were made by Muslim knitters employed by Spanish Christian royal families. Their high level of knitting skill can be seen in several items found in the tombs in the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, a royal monastery, near Burgos, Spain. Among them are the knitted cushion covers and gloves found in the tomb of Prince Fernando de la Cerda, who died in 1275. The silk cushion cover was knit at approximately 20 stitches per inch. It included knit patterns reflecting the family armory, as well as the word baraka ("blessings") in Arabic in stylized Kufic script. Numerous other knit garments and accessories, also dating from the mid-13th century, have been found in cathedral treasuries in Spain.

At this time, the purl stitch (the opposite action to the knit stitch) was unknown and purely stockinette fabric was produced by knitting in the round on multiple knitting needles. Sometimes the knitting was cut open, a process now known as steeking.

Several paintings from Europe portray the Virgin Mary knitting, and date from the 14th century, including Our Lady Knitting by Tommaso da Modena (circa 1325-1375) and Visit of the Angel, from the right wing of the Buxtehude Altar, 1400–10, by Master Bertram of Minden.

Knitting was such a vast occupation among those living on the Scottish Isles during the 17th and 18th centuries that whole families were involved in making sweaters, accessories, socks, stockings, etc. Fair Isle techniques were used to create elaborate colorful patterns. Sweaters were essential garments for the fishermen of these islands because the natural oils within the wool provided some element of protection against the harsh weather encountered while out fishing.

1939 to 1945: Knitting For Victory: Make do and mend was the title of a booklet produced by the British wartime government department, the Ministry of Information. Wool was in very short supply, and the booklet encouraged women to unpick old unwearable woollen items in order to re-use the wool.

Knitting patterns were issued so that people could make items for the Army and Navy to wear in winter, such as balaclavas and gloves. This not only produced the much-needed items, but also gave those on the "home front" a positive sense of contributing to the war effort.


I love the resurgence in interest of the craft of knitting. It really is a timeless art, one of many, that I hope will not be forgotten.

Madonna Knitting, by Bertram of Minden 1400-1410

1855 sketch of a shepherd knitting, while watching his flock.

A World War I poster encouraging people to knit socks for the troops.