Breaching The Web

I just got home from a bell choir rehearsal. We are preparing for a concert that will be at my church on October 24 (at 7pm! You should come!). The music is a very cool assortment of gospel and patriotic music, including some really fun pieces that are rarely heard on hand bells, like Dry Bones and This Land is Your Land.

Today’s rehearsal was a sectional — we rehearsed with 5 people, covering just over an octave of bells (we have a 3 octave choir), and focused just on the parts that were difficult for us. It was a really good, focused, and useful rehearsal.

I am heading up our publicity efforts for the conert. I’ve mailed sent fliers to about 90 local churches, I’ve posted announcements on community websites, and I’ve posted on Craig’s List. I’m about to send e-mail messages to several dozen churches, and to about 10 directors of music. Someone else has sent fliers directly to other area bell choirs, and yet another person is putting an ad in the local paper. Next week I’ll put up fliers at local grocery stores and Panera restaurants, and I’ll post a fresh CL announcement.

I’ve been struck by the mix of dead tree publicity and electronic publicity I’ve come up with. I hope that I’m reaching different people via the different channels, but of course I won’t really know that. It will be interesting to see how many people come to the concert.

I have been reading The Great Society Subway. It’s a history of the Washington, DC Metro system.

It’s fascinating. The details of the design and architecture of the system are interesting, especially the conflicts between the engineers and the architects, who had very different understandings of how people move through a space. The Metro was the first major subway system to be built in the Age of the Automobile, so many of the design constraints were unknown — for example, there were no models to predict the association between commute length and ridership. The process through which the design developed was also interesting — I really enjoy reading about how architects think about the interaction of people and their designs (at least, when they do think about it).

But the best part of the book is the detailed account of the shifting local political scene between 1950 and 1980. The metro was designed and built during this period of transition, when DC residents got the right to vote for president, got a city council and mayor for the first time, and gained more influence over local projects like the Metro. I live in the DC area, so this is probably of more interest to me than it would be otherwise.

The book also explained several things about the system that have puzzled me, for example: why were connections between spokes of the system (such as between Rockville and Silver Spring) omitted from the original design? why is there no station in Georgetown? why is the lighting so dim? why is it so quiet? why are some of the underground stations so deep? why do the blue and yellow lines share so much of their route? And it drops in details about the system that I never thought about, for example, that the stations were designed to feel like an outdoor street, and that the system really is a combination of a regional commuter transit system and an urban subway.

It’s really a great read, although it may be of more interest to people with a personal connection to this area.

I’ve been getting ready for my Personal Library of Stitches embroidery class.

I will be using a wooden embroidery hoop. I’ve had this 8-inch hoop for a million years. I decided to bind the inner ring to give it a bit of a cushion since I will be embroidering on linen. I followed the instructions on the Needle ‘n Thread website. It was very fussy, and I’m not convinced it will make much difference. I’m not sure I would bother doing this again.

I have also been buying/collecting supplies for the class. The picture below shows some of my fun new supplies:

On the left side of the picture, from top to bottom, are the following:
Kreinik metallic, fine braid. Color 02HL. The color is shiny copper.
Kreinik metallic, narrow ribbon. Color 022. It’s black, flecked with copper.
Gumnut yarns poppies. Color 238 50% wool, 50% silk.
Caron Impressions. Color 1103. 50% wool, 50% silk.
Weeks Dye Works. Color 1264 “loden.” 100% cotton, multi-strand.
Gumnut yarns poppies. Color 648. 50% wool, 50% silk.
The Gentle Art, simply wool. Color “maple syrup.” 100% wool.
The Gentle Art, simply shaker. Color “black raspberry jam.” 100% cotton, multi-strand.
Crescent colours. Color “bandana.” 100% cotton, multi-strand.

The two threads off to the right are:
Neon Rays needlepoint ribbon. The color is dark green. 100% rayon.
Soie d’ alger. Color 5116. 100% silk, multi-strand

And underneath all those goodies is the fabric I will be using. It’s Zweigart Dublin linen. The color is called “flax.” This is my first experience with a real needlework fabric. I had no idea what I was doing when I bought it, but the lady who helped me at the shop was very helpful.

In addition to those supplies, I already have a small stash of pearl cotton, mostly size 5 and a huge collection of DMC floss. I’m sure I will be using those too. I also some knitting yarns and other fun things. I think I’m ready.

I’ve signed up to take an online embroidery class called Personal Library of Stitches, taught by Sharon Boggon. Sharon is a crazy quilter who writes at Pintangle. The class isn’t really about stitching — it’s about using design principals to explore stitches.

I’m looking forward to the class, although I am a bit dubious of how such a class will work. The classes are sent out by PDF, and there’s a private forum to get feedback from Sharon and from other class participants. The class starts Tuesday, and I’m spending some time this weekend buying supplies. It will be fun!

I am working on a redwork embroidery sampler. I’m not following any particular pattern — I’m just trying out a variety of stitches. I’m working from three different stitch dictionaries and picking stitches that seem to go together. I’m using back stitches and running stitches to define segments and to rest my fingers (and your eyes).

Here’s a list of the stitches I’ve used so far
1: back stitch
2: running stitch
3: back stitch
4: detached straight stitches, arranged like flower stems.
5: back stitch
6: half-cross stitch
7: chevron
8: half-cross, reversed
9: back stitch
10: fly stitch
11: cross stitch
12: detached straight stitches, stacked
13: back stitch
14: Bosnian stitch
15: sheaf stitch
16: back stitch
17: back stitch
18: straight stitch triangles (look at the left end of this row, I worked in the year, 2009)
19: Bosnian stitch, reversed
20: back stitch
21: St. George’s cross stitch
22: back stitch
23: herringbone
24: buttonhole stitch
25: ermine stitch
26: zipper stitch
27: cross stitch
28: holbein stitch
29: back stitch
30: detached straight stitches
31 (in progress): back stitch

I’ve had a very foody (not foodie) weekend. First, I went to the farmer’s market, where I bought some beautiful fingerling potatoes and a ton of summer squash. Next, I went to the community garden, where I harvested some beautiful purple-podded yard long beans. After that, it was home and a quiet evening. But the next day I started all over again, first making potato salad with loads of dill from my backyard — it was fantastic. Then I made zucchini muffins — again fantastic — and then I got tired. For dinner we just had potato salad, zucchini muffins and stir-fried long beans. The beans are so cool. They turn black when cooked, and taste a bit nutty.

The dramatic collapse of part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and yesterday’s joint meeting of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the Arctic Council have renewed the debate over polar (but mostly Antarctic) tourism.

I’m of two minds about Antarctic tourism. On the one hand, Antarctic tourism brings people face-to-face with the beauty, harshness and stunning otherness of that continent. It most likely creates supporters of or sympathizers with rules and regulations that protect the continent. On the other hand, it’s a dangerous, unregulated industry that’s growing and putting further stress on a fragile ecosystem. The fact that most tourists visit the Antarctic peninsula, where the Wilkins Ice Shelf is now so threatened, makes tourism seem even more risky.

Overall, I think I favor heavily regulating or even banning Antarctic tourism — but which of those two options I prefer depends on the day. However, the current unregulated state of affairs is dangerous for the tourists and for the environment. Unfortunately, supra-national organizations the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the Arctic Council have difficulty making any headway on issues like this during the best of times — which this most certainly isn’t.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a curling, finger-like appendage of ice that reaches out from the continent of Antarctica. It’s been there for thousands of years. The shelf rises 60 feet (~20 meters) high out of the sea, and is attached to Antarctica via a few key bridges — one of which recently collapsed, leaving the future of the shelf in doubt. Antarctica has experienced a temperature rise of 2.5C in the last 50 years, making it a “hot spot” for global climate change, and making these ice shelves increasingly unstable.

Unsurprisingly, the most comprehensive stories about the collapse are coming from New Zealand, which is likely to see very large icebergs head its way if/when the shelf collapses completely. Wilkins is not large enough to contribute to a rise in ocean levels by itself, but it’s part of an alarming and quickening trend. Ten such shelves have broken off, broken up, or collapsed in recent years.

I have always loved trains and train whistles. My husband and I had an outdoor wedding ceremony, in a history house in an older part of Tucson by the train tracks. The site coordinator couldn’t promise us no trains, but she did say they were uncommon on Saturdays. Right before the ceremony started, a train came by. One of my fondest memories of that day is the sound of that train rumbling by while the bell choir played Ode to Joy.

All of which is a set-up for me to say this: As much as I love trains, even I wouldn’t pay $300 for a tea kettle with a train whistle.

As drought rages in multiple tea-growing countries like Kenya, India and Sri Lanka, tea consumption is also increasing leading to a surge in tea prices. Like oil, tea is traded in dollars, and with the dollar regaining a lot of lost ground against the British pound and other currencies, the surge in prices is likely to have only a moderate effect in the US. I’d give you a link for that info about the US price of tea, but we don’t drink enough of it for it to be an issue worth reporting on here, so I’m just speculating. Major tea consuming-countries, like Australia, Russia and England will likely see much greater price increases. Also like oil, rising prices can be expected to have mixed effects on people in tea producing regions. Most likely, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. It’s an old story.