My DC - Week 20

Last weekend, walking through DC, we passed by the Department of Justice and saw this statue of Nathan Hale. We all stopped for moment to debate what famous thing he said. I am very proud to report that I knew the right answer. Yes, I am still smarter than a 6th grader - but not by much.



I also saw pretty flowers around the corner. Aren't the colors great?



This weekend will be another very busy one but in a completely different way. There will be cheering of small softball players, funnel cakes, good music, and more awards heaped upon my children. Naturally I will be there to document it all even as my daughters beg me to please, please, please put the camera away!

Have a great weekend!

The Garden Report 2008

Thank you all so much for your nice comments about my "K". It's so nice when a project that's been with you for so long is finally unveiled and appreciated.

This year I had high hopes for my garden. We were going to tear out a large and annoying ewe to enlarge our garden space and then we were going to create retaining walls to define the bed better and plant a fabulous variety of heirloom veggies and flowers started from seeds we bought last year at Monticello. We did have the ewe removed and I lined up my slave labor to assist with my big Mothers Day project for 2008 and then the rains came. And they never stopped. Finally, I ran out to the local garden store, grabbed a few little plants, stuck them in the ground between downpours and considered myself lucky. Better luck next year.

Above you can see my herbs. These were all planted last year and they are thriving and providing us with delightful scents and flavorful foods. Fromt front to back we have lavender, savory, rosemary, and sage. Here's something new... cantaloupe . I grew these last year too but I had a small problem determining when it was ripe enough to pick. This year my goal is to pick it and eat it before it rots on the vine.

The cantaloupe is a slow starter but there are other plants that are off to a fast and very promising start. Like my zucchini and my green peppers. Not only are those flowers pretty - they're a sign of yummy things to come.

There's a newcomer in the garden this summer too. Tomatoes! I didn't get any last year because I don't like fresh tomatoes but this year I planted them because I hope to make sauce and cook with them.

K is for...

Kippah. A Kippah, also known as a yarmulke, is a head covering worn by Jewish men and occasionally women. This K has a lot of meaning for me, not for religious reasons but for family ones because kippot are also a connection to the generations that came before. In this case, K is the start of a really big project too.

It's customary for the family celebrating an event to provide kippot for the attendees. Usually they are satin or leather although I recently saw some nifty eco-friendly ones made of recycled materials. Since they have the relevant names and dates printed on the inside, they make nice remembreances of the event. These kippot were made by my grandmother, Shirley. The burgundy and silver were for my Bat Mitzvah, the teal and gold were for my sister's and the black with white and green accents were for my brother's Bar Mitzvah.(My kippah collection is missing so I thank my brother and sister for these pictures)

My grandmother also made these kippot in hunter green and white for my wedding. I'm not sure how many she made for the earlier events but I know that she made 80 for my wedding because I have her notes. You can see the index card sticking out from under the kippah and it shows her running tally of the amount finished. On the other side of the card are her notes on the pattern and the yarn she was using.

These notes were part of my grandmother's cache of knitting and crochet supplies that I inherited about 11 years ago. I was thrilled to get them even though I had no clue how to knit or crochet at the time. I dreamed of continuing the tradition but it was years before I picked up her needles. Needles - not hooks. The knitting came first.

Over the next few years, I grew to love knitting although my experience with crochet remained limited to edgings. My dad watched me knit and we often discussed my grandmother's influence and I knew that my dad loved that I was carrying on her legacy. As time went on we talked a lot about the kippot and how I wanted to use her tools and pattern to carry on the tradition. My dad loved that and really encouraged me. He had long since stopped practicing any religion but those kippot were a big deal for him.

This brings us to the present and for the past seven months I've been trying to develop the necessary skills and decipher the pattern so that I could carry out an ambitious plan. I want to make all of the kippot for my daughter's upcoming Bat Mitzvah. There, I said it. Now I'm really committed. OMG, what am I getting myself into?

I started by learning to crochet because I couldn't find a knit version of my grandmother's pattern. Believe me I tried to figure out how to knit them up but the open star was a problem. I watched videos on the internet and read many versions of the instructions. It wasn't pretty. I also consulted Linda Hurt at Springwater Fiber Workshop because there were stitches I couldn't figure out at all. My grandmother used terms that I couldn't find on the internet but with Linda's help I figured it all out.

Then came the yarn. As if making a large number of items using an unfamiliar technique wasn't challenging enough - I decided to dye the yarn myself. You may recognize my first attempt - the blue and white yarn above. I showed it to you months ago when I thought it would be the one I used for this project. It's a wool/silk winding and I loved the look of it. I tried it out with the pattern and after 2 test kippot (seen above) I realized that it just wasn't right. The yarn didn't have the right drape and the results were thick and stiff. Because I know nothing about crochet I spent the next few months agonizing over a better choice.

I finally settled on silk because if you're going to attempt a crazy project that's way beyond you - why not go for broke? I contacted Diane at Woven Gems and she was really helpful. She sent me samples and I tested them out and in the end I guessed. I ordered up a bunch of yarn and hoped for the best. At left you can see the result. I dyed up 2/3 of it and left the rest natural. I used a few different shades of blue Cushings dye and got a yarn that is softly variegated with colors that go from nearly navy blue to a sky blue with occasional shots of aqua. These pictures show the first two kippot in the sun so that you can see the silk's lustre and on a dark background so that you can see the colors. It's a good thing that I love this yarn so much because it'll be my constant companion for the next few months. My goal is 80 so I've got a lot of crochet ahead of me. Thankfully my mom had agreed to sew in all of the labels. I think that might send me right over the edge.


For anyone who read this whole, long, post, I thank you. It really means a lot to me.