Seriously Goofy Weather

The weather here has been so up and down, I don't know where to start.

With yesterday, when it was 46 degrees F (8 C), almost all day?

With the middle of last night, as the temperature rose from 46 at 10 pm to 53 degrees (12 C) at 4 am?

Or with this morning, when the temperature dropped from the 53 degree high to 28 degrees in only 4 hours?

Most of our earlier snow is now running down the drainage ditches in the form of brown water.

But look closely along the edge of the car windshield: snow.

The weather forecast is all jolly for the holidays:

An arctic cold front will move through lower Michigan this morning. Much colder air will pour into the region causing a quick freeze up on area roads and sidewalks. Arctic air streaming in from Wisconsin around a very intense winter storm will result in snow squalls from this afternoon into Monday morning. Most of the accumulating snow will be from mid afternoon into the early morning hours of Monday. Winds will be gusting near 50 mph at times. The combination of the strong winds and snow showers will result in near blizzard conditions with visibilities occasionally near zero.

Monday, that would be Christmas Eve, when we bring gallons of seafood chowder, unbaked homemade apple dumplings, and the oplatki up the highway to celebrate with my husband's extended family.

So let's hear it for the snowplow drivers!

Oh. Yeah.

Friday we got wireless access!!

Now we are so hoping those 50 mile-an-hour wind gusts don't blow the brand new wireless antenna off the roof.

It runs around 380 Mbps, which I'm told is relatively slow for wireless, but it's a heck of a lot faster than a 52 Kbps dial-up connection! I might actually be able to post stash and projects and stuff on Ravelry, imagine that.

Meanwhile, I've been able to look at the lace on the cards exchanged by members of the Arachne lace email list. Those pictures load [snap!] just like that. It's amazing.

I think I'm in the 21st century now, me with my woodstove, floor loom, tatting and netting shuttles, and knitting needles.

Here Be A . . . Salamander?

We first got connected to the internet back in 1992, and I found and joined the Arachne lace email list some time in 1995 or 1996. I remember that it was early enough after its creation that I was able to download and read all the archives right back to the beginning.

I love my Arachne friends -- through the list, I met the tatters who started the West Michigan Lace Group, as well as bobbin lacemakers all over the world who I consider good friends even if I've never met them in real life.

Although I don't make bobbin lace myself, I've learned enough to recognize and marvel at it.

So I knew that they would be the people to turn to for help identifying the bobbin lace I posted as a dragon the other day.

The lace is about 3.5 inches/9cm square. You can click on this close-up and see every thread, thread end, crossing and tiny stain, including some I didn't notice until I opened the photo on my computer.

One of the first responses I received suggested that this was not a dragon, but a heraldic salamander. The heraldic salamander lives in fire, like the salamander Fred and George feed a firework in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

As the discussion took off a bit, one member posted photos of a salamander and a hedgehog that matched the very hedgehog I didn't manage to buy.

Her salamander and hedgehog were found in the Lace Manufacturers' Museum in Retournac, France. The bobbin lace technique is called "guipure".

With the information that the salamander was the emblem of Francois I of France, I wandered around Google until I found that the porcupine (not hedgehog) was the emblem of Louis XII.

Fascinating! When I saw bobbin lace, I thought "hedgehog," as the hedgehog with her back full of "pins" is sometimes called the bobbin lacemaker's mascot. But since I had seen the two little lace pictures as a pair, I now believe they were a matched set of Francois I's salamander and Louis XII's porcupine.

What a lovely lot to learn from an inexpensive antique-store purchase!

Here Be (A) Dragon

But not a knitted one.

I finally made it back to the antique shop where I saw this bobbin lace dragon and a hedgehog in matching frames. They were labelled "embroidered pictures". The hedgehog was gone, so I snapped up the dragon.

I'm hoping one of my friends from Arachne can tell me where this pattern came from, and what is that in front of the dragon's nose? Is he breathing fire?

Crocheted doilies are pretty common in antique stores hereabouts, knitted ones not so much. I missed this one the first time around, but as I was searching for where my husband had gotten to, I spotted it. The tag said, "$1 each" but I only found the one. It has one hole and a broken thread in the left border towards the bottom, so maybe it was left behind when someone bought the others.

I got a couple more flower pictures yesterday morning.

I don't plant these hot pink things. They just come up from seed every year. They are not the kind that comes back from the root and tries to choke everything.

While I love morning glories, the hot pink is not my favorite. But since they volunteered, I just enjoy them. I always wonder if they have enough nectar for the hummingbirds to come to them.

This is probably the last lily that will bloom this year, the last blossom of "Roma". Usually my Romas have a few more flecks in the throat, and more blossoms, too.

The bud counts on most of my lilies was low this year, and I missed seeing some of them bloom while we were at Origins in Columbus. It was so hot, they opened and dried up just like that. By the time we came back they were just dried-up petals.

The other thing I did yesterday was try to get photos of the four Eastern kingbirds, Tyrannus tyrannus, that were rattling and flying after insects outside the window where I was busily knitting away on the ragg wool legwarmers.

I got two of them, and a robin. The American robin has an unforgettable scientific name, if you share my low sense of humor: Turdus migratorious. Okay, okay, I know the genus name means "thrush". That's not what comes into my head when I see "turdus".

Cool Link

A little background:

I've been a member of the Arachne lace email list since about 1995. Although I've never made bobbin lace, twelve years of exposure to bobbin lacemakers' web pages and emails has given me some familiarity with it.

I've seen a lot of lace pillows, but check out this bobbin lacemaking machine:

Go to Wilhelm Rehage KG. Click on the UK flag for English, then click on "Video" in the sidebar. Wow.

Starting Anew

I didn't know what I was going to take to the West Michigan Lace Group meeting, but as I got ready to run out the door, I finally decided:

I want to knit the fancy dishcloth my husband rescued from the armory.


I didn't get much done! My friend tatt3r brought the yarn she got from Knitpicks.com, a soft laceweight merino in a color called "Oregon Coast". Our taste in colors is wildly different, but I have to admit, up close the "Oregon Coast" is full of beautiful soft shades of blue and tan and purplish. From a distance, it's a soft brownish color, like a camel-hair coat. (Aww, come on, didn't everyone's grama or great-aunt have one of those tan-brown camel hair coats? With some tatting in one pocket, no doubt!)

We had some show and tell: a red knitted doily (now I wish I had thought to bring the camera), teneriffe lace, the Shetland Museum postcard tatt3r won in an Arachne raffle, and a handkerchief with a lovely bobbin lace edging.

I don't make bobbin lace, but as a weaver, I find the end result fascinating. My bobbin-lacer friends could point out the fans and spiders and the rose ground in the edging. That doesn't convey its delicacy and the daintiness! The member who brought it in said she found it in an antique store, and paid maybe $2 for it. [rolls eyes] For all that work, and likely as not, labelled "crochet"!

In double-knitting news, Knitty.com has a double-knitted scarf up in the Spring issue. The pattern is called "Exchequered", and I'll leave you to search it out on your own. Alice Bell can come join the Yahoo double knitting group (see sidebar) any ole' time she wants to.

Being a geeky person, I also enjoyed "Nautie", the knitted nautilus. The designer, Beth Skwarecki says, "Every scary prehistoric beast should be made into a huggable toy . . .", and I can't really argue with that!