The Spinster's Bubble?

The holiday sale went well.  I sold a few skeins of yarn and traded one for a beautiful ceramic piece by Anne-Marie McIntyre.  There is something about yarn and ceramics...they go together so well, especially as trades.

Here is one interesting difference between selling handspun yarn in Brooklyn vs. Newfoundland: people in Brooklyn had to be told that the yarn was handspun (this, despite the tags labeling it as such). For a good long while, I did not understand that visitors did not understand that it was handspun until someone asked me if I was the distributor for the yarn or what.  When I replied that I actually made the yarn, she still looked perplexed, no doubt trying imagine what kind of massive machinery I must own.  Finally I said, "I handspun it".

"Oh!!  You mean you spun this yourself?  Like on a spinning wheel?  Wow!"

What seemed obvious to me was clearly not even on people's radar here.  After that exchange, I mentioned it to everyone who seemed even vaguely interested in the yarn.  Nearly every single person had the same reaction, as if the notion of spinning wool into yarn was so out there as to be unimaginable.

I guess we all live in our own version of The Bubble.

Give WalMart a Break

The bkbx (Brooklyn Box) collective will be hosting a holiday sale this Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m.  There will be small works by many of the collective artists for sale at very reasonable prices.  So, give WalMart a break and purchase your gifts this weekend on the banks of the Gowanus Canal.  They need a rest after all that Black Friday melee stuff and we need your money!

(Does anyone besides me remember the self-appointed economic ambassador/homeless guy who used stand outside the entrance to the 9th Street PATH station in Manhattan greeting people with "Welcome to New York!  The city needs your money!"?)

Anyhoo, I will have handspun yarns for sale along with a small selection of handknit items.

bkbx holiday sale
Saturday, December 14th &
Sunday, December 15th
12:00 – 6:00 p.m.

bkbx will be joining Proteus Gowanus and Morbid Anatomy Library to bring you a fabulous array of beautiful, curious and protean artist-made gifts for the holidays.

bkbx (Brooklyn Box)
543 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215

This = Yes

Paul Chahidi & Jenny Tiramani from Shakespeare's Globe on Vimeo.

It was my extreme good fortune to be able to see this amazing production of Twelfth Night.  If you are in NYC, go see it.  Why are you still sitting here?  Go!

Really, I laughed 'til I cried.

And the costumes!  The actors get dressed on stage, which sounds a little gimmicky but really it is quite remarkable.  Somehow, although you see these people begin as regular, 21st Century people, by the time they are dressed, you are already forgetting that.  Minutes into the play, you are completely convinced that (1) it is the 16th Century and (2) men are women.

Ok, now please go see it.

Priorities

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Holiday gifts to make, student robes to sew, two solo exhibitions to make work for (say what??), not to mention actual work to do, applications to send, teenagers to feed, housework to be done...

...I could go on.  But really that is all so ho-hum.  What is more important is this skein of yarn and the marathon of watching Project Runway that spawned it.

Ms. Olyve approves.

And so do I.

Problem Solved?

Thanks to Zabeth for pointing this out!

MY KNITTED BOYFRIEND from Noortje de Keijzer on Vimeo.

Mojo is No Go

Coffee, books and yarn.  This is the good kind of multi-tasking.

Somewhere among all my trips these past two months, I lost my multi-tasking mojo.  I am definitely a "more is more" kind of person.  Homeschooling?  Art making?  Yoga teaching?  Zen practice?  Bring. It. On.

Or so I thought.  These past couple of weeks, however, I have noticed that I keep losing things.  Important things.  Things that need to be deposited into bank accounts and things that cost real money.  I am taking it as a sign that, perhaps, I need to stay home just a little bit more.

Early on in my homeschooling career when the kids were quite young, I remember hearing another mother (of five, no less!) saying how the solution to almost all of her family's problems could be solved by staying home more and running around the city less.  I think of it often, in fact.  Even now, as the mother of teenagers, I see how my being home - not necessarily interacting with anyone - is very important to the general happiness of everyone involved.  But the schedule has been a bit more hectic than usual and things feel like they are leaking out at the edges.  Leaking out and, apparently, disappearing because I can not find anything anymore.

Now I will leave you so I can search for that sheet of stamps that I know I left somewhere around here...