Dear Kay,
The day after the day after Thanksgiving may be one of the most delicious days of all. Here in Nashville, the spectacularly mild weather has given way to something damper and cooler, which suits me. Family is still here, but the conversations are getting juicier now that we have all validated that our children are indeed bigger than they were last year, that we are all still doing things not unlike the things we were doing last year, and yes, brother, you should get yourself a colonoscopy for heaven’s sake.
The windows were open for Thursday night’s dinner. It was a big group, and the little cousins were once again reunited with their impossibly glamorous older cousins.
Friday meant a ramble with Mary Neal and Susan down from Paducah—two able companions who know how to make the most of a balmy day with no schedule. We stopped by Craft South for a hello to proprietor Anna Maria Horner and otherworldly phenomenon Juliana Horner, who is at work on a project we are DYING TO SHARE WITH YOU. Please stay tuned.
Craft South is located in the dead center of 12South, a Nashville neighborhood that has been overtaken by hordes of wandering folk with Frothy Monkey coffee cups, Draper James bags (Reese Witherspoon’s new dress shop), and bespoke denim from Imogene & Willie. Craft South is an oasis amid the muchness.
Rebekka Seale’s Camellia Fiber Co. yarns are a sigh come to life:
A snack-sized Koigu shrine.
A wall of Appleton tapestry yarn. Yes, Kay, we dug out all the shades you need for your needlepoint pillow. Shall post them posthaste.
Love Your Gear, Chapter 203
I bought a new crochet hook. It’s a Boye 2.25 mm. It’s the second crochet hook I ever bought, and I’m having the feeling now that I have wasted vast amounts of time trying to make my big old crochet hook pick up dropped stitches in socks, lace, and other small-gauge projects.
It really delivers when you’re trying to get a dropped stitch of Kidsilk Haze back into action.
Last night I made the horrifying discovery that the eight people staying upstairs at our house have been brushing their teeth and washing their hands in the bathtub. They had one sink for the whole group, and somehow the sink was not working. They are such exquisitely polite people that they didn’t want to bother me with the fact that they had no operating sink. The water was a drippy trickle—not the mighty firehose of water that was supposed to be coming out of the new faucet I’d had put in to replace a Brady Bunch-era faucet.
I awoke this morning with the realization that the faucet probably had debris stuck in the aerator because the plumber had replaced a crappy rusted pipe under the sink when he put in the new faucet.
The mighty Boye fished out the gunk, and a mighty stream of water poured out. This is the worst AirB&B ever. My fear is that next year they’ll all bug out to the Hampton Inn, and I just don’t think I could bear that.
Love,
Ann
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“This is the worst AirB&B ever.” : ) We have a very polite guest staying with us right now, but when we talked about reconfiguring our “guest space,” she was all in favor of our moving the sleeping quarters nearer to the guest bathroom, so “as not to disturb us,.”
Wonderful story!
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A group I belong to on Ravelry recently shared blog sites pertinent to knitting and all things yarn (what would you expect from a group on Ravelry?). I have been reading Modern Daily Knitting ever since and you’re the first one I open every day. I just love ‘talking’ to you both and feel like I’m just sitting there listening to the conversation every day. Thanks so much for sharing all this goodness with us!
Aha! Plumbing repair with crochet hook! Brava! In a related maneuver, I made a car repair with a brand-new Brittany birch knitting needle (the only one available at the time) a few months ago. It’s too embarrassing and bit too long and drawn out to relate in full here……but the moral of the story is NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES should one leave home without knitting……you never know.
PS–The Brittany cleaned up just fine.
AS LONG AS YOU DIDN’T DO ANY HOME REPAIRS WITH MY NEEDLEPOINT WOOL
Ohmigod! The plumbing story made me truly laugh out loud, but the vision of home repairs using needlepoint wool almost made me fall out of my chair!! How often have I said this? – But I am so glad y’all are back!
Ha!
But wouldn’t that make a great blog story!
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I love the creative use of tools. Get it from my grandfather who was seen to prize kitchen shelves off the wall with a garden spade (they were stuck due to 40 years of paint).
There was a lovely article in The Guardian family section today. Not knitting but it does have Liberty Tana lawn and family sewing. It fits well with the MDK ethos.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/28/handmade-clothes-sewing-liberty-print-fashion-textile-museum-london
Thanks for the link about Liberty’s and the wonderful piece – I talk about clothing and memory, and how objects tell stories. This was wonderful!
HA! Crochet hook to the rescue! I have enough grainy sediment floating around in my plumbing, leftover from the bad-old-well-water days, that I had to remove the slow-flow filter on my shower head for cleaning. Maybe someday I will put it back.
Craft South is ON MY LIST.
Thank you for such wonderful posts. I am a newcomer and have enjoyed every single one so far. I especially enjoy all of the information shared both by the blog and by the comments. Thank you, Sara W, for sharing the Guardian article. It made me remember simpler times and the joy I had when I smocked my baby boy’s clothing (he is now 22 years old). That is why I knit and sew – to have some of me in my clothing.
Whew! I was afraid this was turning into a crocheting blog.
Maybe it’s turning into a plumbing repair blog.
🙂
That is such a great color of kid silk haze!
The photo of the cousins brought such tender memories of our family gatherings years ago. Thank you.
Tiny crochet hooks are amazing! I saw (and bought) one at a thrift shop for a dollar, and it is wonderful for fixing little oops in socks. So much better than the massive crochet hook someone gave me in a big bag of retired knitting needles, and which I had been crazily trying to use. Right tool for the job! So important! And the right tool is the one that Does The Job. Like pipe-cleaning. (I was laughing about the bathtub but then I thought about it and realized…I would probably tiptoe outside under cover of darkness and brush my teeth at a hosepipe before I would risk insulting my hostess by criticizing her plumbing!)
Love the perfect picture of the little cousins in the Court of The Glamorous Cousins 🙂
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No way is it the worst AirB&B ever. Trust me on this. A couple weeks ago–oh never mind, I can’t stand to talk about yet.
Good job on the plumbing! I keep an old-style #2 Boye knitting needle in my toolbox. I can spring a distraught youngster from an accidentally locked bathroom in 30 seconds flat. It comes in handy all the time! I think it’s my favorite tool.
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Oh Ann, you do make me laugh! And provide useful information at the same time. Am putting Nashville on my “places to go before I need a wheelchair ” list. And it’s good to know how multi-functional a crochet hook can be.
Loved catching up on the blog today. I was pleasantly surprised when I recognized the pictures from Craft South. We are visiting our son and daughter-in-law in Nashville for the week (from PA.) and she and I visited Craft South today. It is such a lovely little craft boutique. We also visisted Haus Of Yarn, another LYS in the Nashville area. I love Nashville-what a great place to visit!
Happy Holidays,
Laura?
I have used acrylic yarn (never the good wool) to floss my bicycle gears of oily, sandy,dirt. It works a charm..In the early 70’s, my friend kept a beer can opener in her VW beetle for the purpose of fixing the choke when it got stuck. It would do this about every two weeks. This was back when women weren’t supposed to know anything about car maintenance. We were at a parking lot, with her head in the engine fixing it, when a man approached to ask if he could help. She politely said ‘No thanks, all you need to fix a Beetle is a can opener”. He was still standing there with his mouth open when we drove away.
I had a 1977 Ford Maverick. I used to “fix” my choke with a clothespin. 😉
Dear Ann, I thought of you & Nashville when I saw this short on Atelier Savas:
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-made-atelier-savas-leather-jackets/
A bit OT, but a craft person totally dedicated to doing what she loves, kinda like MDK. Would like a personal report if you see fit :)).
This is really wonderful. I love her advice that your leather jacket will look five times better after it gets wet in the rain then dries out. She’s pretty clear eyed about it all.
That picture of the cousins is fantastic. Capturing a moment in time. My family would never be that polite. My brother would have fixed the faucet while my sister announced it loudly.
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Let me know about the blogs. Thanks.
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No one is mentioning the vastly superior shaping of the Susan Bates Crochet Hook? Just had to throw that in – Boye is easier to find, but Bates is in the same price family and for me and many, many others has meant the different between “crochet hooks are a waste of metal” to “perhaps I’ll crochet the next blanket.”
I think RedHeart makes yarn especially suited to the cleaning of drain pipes. The only best “I’m so mature” in a GOOD way feeling is when I do plumbing.
Love your blog glad you are back
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