This is a photograph of a typical hard-working American family taken about one hundred years ago, probably in Rosenberg, Texas. My cousin just emailed it to me; the little girl squinting, lower right, is my grandmother Exia Southwick (nee Rawson). Exia was a character. She was high spirited, loved to laugh and created magical gardens in California where she lived as an adult. I remember a garden in San Jose with apricot and almond trees (delicious) and gladiolus, roses, pansies and fuschias which I made into ballerinas. Along her driveway was a cactus garden in which I frequently fell while jumping rope, roller skating or chasing jacks balls and consequently hated. Exia always loved the mountains of California and loved nothing better than to jump in the car and drive to Yosemite, which we often did. She thought nothing of driving from California to Texas and did so through hurricanes on occasion. Exia was a red-head, my mother is a red-head and my daughter is a red-head and Exia lived to see the birth of my daughter on her own birthday. - Kathy
I needed a post for today, so I ran outside to photograph my garden again. The thing is, I love my garden, and the season is very short here in Maine. But I also want to talk about books, because I was hugged by an author I admire today, Linda Greenlaw. I first became aware of her while reading the book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger. The Perfect Storm is a true account of a recent marine disaster off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Linda Greenlaw was a captain of a fishing vessel mentioned in the book. She grew up on the Maine island of Isle au Haut, went to Bowdoin College, then became the captain of a fishing ship. The same summer I read The Perfect Storm, I also read the gripping (well both these books are gripping) Into Thin Air by John Krakauer, about a mountain climbing disaster on Mt Everest. Linda Greenlaw is a fascinating person for many reasons. A ship captain! An author! And she also has written two murder mysteries and a cookbook. Definitely a woman to admire.
A friend of mine owns the delightful bookstore in Searsport, Maine, Left Bank Books, at which I fill in when needed. Today they co-hosted a book-signing with Linda Greenlaw at the Penobscot Marine Museum and needed me to mind the shop. I wouldn't be able to meet Linda Greenlaw! I was to be at the bookstore and she at the Museum. Sadly, I settled down behind the cash register, directed folks across the street to the Museum, and began to read Linda's wonderful book about being a swordfish boat captain, The Hungry Ocean. Suddenly I looked up and there she was. "It's me!" she said. I jumped up, very excited, "I have to shake your hand." But when I came towards her she gave me a hug. I was in heaven. Happy ending. I came home to a delicious dinner cooked by my husband, and we watched two episodes of the HBO series The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency, which is quite charming. It is filmed in Botswana. We had listened to the novels on audio and enjoyed them very much. Lastly, getting back to gardens, my favorite garden writer is Vita-Sackville West, who made the famous Sissinghurst Castle Garden in England. We're having a glorious summer here. Hope you are, too. - Kathy
This Monday we are hosting the Blog Cafe. I first saw this on The Knitting Blog by Mr. Puffy the Dog, which I love (I think of it as Mr. Puffy's Knitting Blog) and is one of the many wonderful knitting/life blogs on the web.
So here's the idea - this is from the Blog Cafe website: Every Monday, we're going to gather at somebody's blog for some food, fun, and great conversation. Each week, we will have a different blogger act as our host for our virtual get-together. When you are the host, you will choose what we're "eating" and where we're "meeting", and you'll get us started on a topic of conversation. We hope you'll share some photos of where you're taking us and what we're having--give us a taste of the local fare and maybe give us a peek of the world in your neck of the woods! Then the rest of us--anyone and everyone is welcome--will pop in for a visit sometime throughout the day and leave a comment. We'll share our thoughts and insights on the topic you've chosen, and we'll all get to know each other better!
So we are eating muffins (see above) and gathering at The Good Kettle, a new take-out cafe in Stockton Springs, Maine, my home town. They have home-made local produce and prepared food, soups, sandwiches and especially delicious jams and chutneys. You can get an entire meal to go! Or just fudge. And wines, including the very delicious Maine Bartlett wines. They make a wonderful dry pear wine. And will ship! This cafe shop is adorable. They carry gorgeous hand-woven towels made by my neighbor Debbie who owns the yarn, weaving and spinning store Purple Fleece. You can now buy Debbie's hand-dyed yarn online, and her patterns are on Ravelry. Lastly, The Good Kettle has cute tee shirts!
So the Blog Cafe discussion topic is this: has art changed your life?
The arts: books, movies, paintings, plays, music, are my steadfast, entertaining, illuminating, life-affirming, comforting companions. At the risk of sounding a bit corny, they feed my soul and shelter my spirit. But in fact they do.
As a moody teenager, I spent hours in my room listening to Chopin and the Beatles, reading a biography of Toulouse-Lautrec, Salinger's Franny and Zooey, Jane Austen, Magister Ludi. Out of high school I worked at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts when it was a sleepy old-fashioned place, and loved to wander through the rooms and be alone especially with the Egyptian and Greek sculpture. During college I fell in love with John Singer Sargent and frequently visited his remarkable portrait at the MFA, Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.
After college I worked for an antiquities dealer named Mr. Berheimer in his basement shop in Harvard Square (where I read all of Chekov and Simone de Beauvoir's four volume autobiography, the first one, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter being my favorite). I was in an unhappy marriage at the time and one day was looking at Middle Eastern sculpture fragments made by someone some two thousand years ago and suddenly felt not alone in my misery.
A record of the musical Ain't Misbehavin' got me through the divorce and alone at night I watched Mash and read Ursula Le Guin's astonishing, healing, mind-blowing Earth Sea Trilogy and several of May Sarton's autobiographies - again the first, I Knew a Phoenix, was my favorite.
When I moved to Maine and met Scott Moore and discovered he loved medieval music I knew he was the man for me.
I could go on but am very tired having just returned from TKGA & TCGA's Knit and Crochet Show in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was a great show and lovely to see so many of you there! So please leave a comment and share your art experiences with us! - Kathy
Here is the famous picture of Cary Grant knitting in the movie "Mr. Lucky", which I have not seen (why?). Cary couldn't knit, but Katherine Hepburn was a famous knitter. Here is a link to a wonderful list of novels, movies and television shows with knitting in them: hipforums.com.
Last month some friends and I were sitting and waiting for two husbands to return from the mountains driving a slightly wonky car so we were a bit nervous, and we started talking about movies, which ones were our favorites, and all of a sudden two hours went by and the husbands walked in safe and sound. I have the full list, but I want to organize it, so for now here are my (not in any particular order) top ten (for right now):
1. Fanny and Alexander 2. Jaws 3. Lion in Winter 4. Strictly Ballroom 5. La Nuit de Varennes 6. Dead Again 7. Red Beard 8. Seven Samuri 9. Year of Living Dangerously 10. North By Northwest 11. My Man Godfrey 12. Babette's Feast 13. Secret of Roan Inish 14. Waking Ned Devine 15. Thirty-Nine Steps 16. Witness 17. Room with a View 18. Sabrina 19. Breakfast at Tiffany's 20. Murder She Said 21. Diva 22. Harvey
Okay top twenty-two. These are movies I have seen many times and will continue to watch for the rest of my life. "Murder She Said", and all the Miss Marple movies with Margaret Rutherford, are my comfort movies (to watch when sick, sad, missing a traveling family member, sleepless, snowed in). As is the BBC tv Pride and Prejudice. Do you have movies you watch over and over? Or comfort movies?
Now for something completely different. My husband and I spent the day transcribing a group of letters written during the Civil War by a soldier in a Connecticut regiment. We are both interested in history, and started out saying we were only going to do one or two of the letters (he reading, I typing). We did twelve of the thirty or so letters. We just couldn't stop. This guy was at Gettysburg. He had dinner with a rebel family whose son was in the Confederate Army. They marched to Tennessee. It was so hot men dropped dead of the heat. They were starving on half rations. And on and on, we finally stopped at the end of 1863.
What I have been meaning to blog about is my daughter's high school graduation last month, what she knit (and drew - she's going to art school) during her childhood, what I knit for her, and am knitting for her now to take with her to college (not that she needs it). This is big this going away from home, this ending of childhood, this starting up of a brand new exciting chapter. Anyway, that's coming up. -Kathy
Back in 2009, Ann Shayne blogged on Mason-Dixon about recording for us in a Nashville studio. Apparently this was a lifelong goal for her--something to check off the bucket list! See Ann's full post here:
Although we have fun with all our books, recording Mason-Dixon's Knitting Outside The Lines was especially entertaining: at some points they had to re-record, because Kathy was laughing so hard that you could hear her in the background!
I believe in the importance of the small things we do everyday, knitting, cooking, gardening, sharing stories with family and friends. I started the audiobook company Knitting Out Loud (which has become Out Loud Audiobooks to include Cooking Out Loud)to celebrate home and hearth. It is a great pleasure to be able to bring the books I love to audio.
This is a photograph of a typical hard-working American family taken about one hundred years ago, probably in Rosenberg, Texas. My cousin just emailed it to me; the little girl squinting, lower right, is my grandmother Exia Southwick (nee Rawson). Exia was a character. She was high spirited, loved to laugh and created magical gardens in California where she lived as an adult. I remember a garden in San Jose with apricot and almond trees (delicious) and gladiolus, roses, pansies and fuschias which I made into ballerinas. Along her driveway was a cactus garden in which I frequently fell while jumping rope, roller skating or chasing jacks balls and consequently hated. Exia always loved the mountains of California and loved nothing better than to jump in the car and drive to Yosemite, which we often did. She thought nothing of driving from California to Texas and did so through hurricanes on occasion. Exia was a red-head, my mother is a red-head and my daughter is a red-head and Exia lived to see the birth of my daughter on her own birthday.
