Thing 2 and I get another crafty weekend and I share video of his first dance recital. Tonight, watching a splashy dance number he announces that all he wants to do is be on TV. Have we created a monster or was he doomed from the start?

here are some links for you: Funny online movie starring Jaleel White and Leyna Weber. It's a new webseries Road to the Alter. Full disclosure, I was only able to stream the first minute plus (that's the technology part above) but what I saw was funny. I'm going to guess that it might not be PG though. Just a headsup.

Also, don't forget to check out KnittingDaily.com and BrookklynTweed. There's also the fab Etsy store with the cool Shakespeare Sock Club (I LOVE the colors), cool Twitter news, a book review by our own Becky, now of Tucson (Go Saguaros!), your link to the new Harry Potter Site, and checkout Leanne's Lovely blog.

Quilting Arts Gives Away Free eBook of 7 Quilted Bag Patterns

eBook giveaway celebrates launch of the new Quilting Arts website and online community, www.quiltingarts.com

Loveland, Colo. - May 2009: Quilting Arts magazine announced this month that they are giving away a new free eBook, 7 Quilted Bag Patterns: Handmade Quilt Bags from Quilting Arts, to celebrate the launch of their new online community website, www.quiltingarts.com

The new Quilting Arts online community is a place for contemporary quilters to engage with each and the magazineâs editors online, upload photos of their work, share videos, comment on stories, view Quilting Arts Challenge galleries, download free projects and tutorials, and much more.

The 18-page eBook offers easy-to-print sewing patterns and templates for making seven different handmade bags for every personality and skill level, from beginning stitchers to advanced art quilters. The free eBook of quilted bag patterns includes materials lists and step-by-step directions for every bag, along with beautifully photographed full-color examples.

âThere is such a wide variety of quilted bags in this free eBook, from quilted accessory purses that are perfect for holding your jewelry or makeup when you travel to evening clutches and eco-friendly shopping bags. You might want to make them all. And what I love about quilted bags is that they are the perfect small project for trying new skills, or to show off your love of quilting when youâre out and about,â says Quilting Arts Editor Pokey Bolton.

Beginners can try their hands at an easy-to-assemble Artful Eco Bag, then apply their quilting skills to a Pretty Purse. The Easy & Elegant Quilted Bag is perfect for people who love embellishment and stitch, but not necessarily the intricacies of sewing patterns. More experienced artists will love the Blue, Yellow, and Purple Evening Bags and the Mini Messenger Bag with a digitally altered and inkjet-printed design.

Download the free eBook of 7 Quilted Bag Patterns here:

http://quiltingarts.com/7-Free-Quilted-Bag-Patterns/

Puritans are explained!

My new site is nearly done!

AND MSW UPDATE: After Party that Guido (It'sAPurlMan) and Alanna (TactileTravel) and Jess (Ravelry) have put togetherâIt's Saturday night in Columbia and we'll have food and some door prizes and hopefully a ton of fun.  There's more info at http://tactileafterparty.com.

Interweave ROCKSâGo there NOW!!!

Interweave is celebrating Earth Day by offering two free digital issues of the most current Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines for a limited time.

Digital subscriptions are great for the eco-conscious who are trying to save paper (or who are going paperless to stay organized and clutter-free)! And we love them because you can see the artwork in better detail; zoom in and out to better read the text; click on ads and go right to the website for more information; search your issues for specific articles; and so much more!

Have you taken a look at one? For one week only (until 4/29/09) you can view the entire digital edition of the Quilting Arts April/May 2009 issue and Cloth Paper Scissors May/June 2009 issue. These magazines have a regular newsstand value of $7.99 each!

INSIDE THE ISSUES

The 2009 Craftlit Challenge!

âfor the first ever The March Hare loves CraftLit Design Contest!

We have dyed up a brand new colorway for our very special 70/30 wool/silk blend in a very special CraftLit colorwayâa very rich, earthy, semisolid scarlet. Just what every self-righteous Puritan would choose to brand one who strays. We have of course named it The Scarlet Letter.

TSL Yarn

Such a yarn of course demands a fantastic design. Thatâs where weâre hoping CraftLitâs endlessly talented and creative listeners can help us. Weâd like to challenge you to design something for the yarn inspired by the novel, the times, the characters. Weâll have a fantastic panel of celebrity judges pick the winner, who will receive the projectâs worth of yarn.

The details:

1) All entries should be designed with The Scarlet Letter yarn in mind (not necessarily in hand).
Yarn specs:435 yards per cake. 70/30 merino wool/silk. True fingering weight: 4 ply with 14 wpi.
2) Knitting, crochet, weaving, tatting, macramÃ, nalbindingâif you can do it with yarn itâs fair game.
3) Entries must be in before the last chapter is posted to the CraftLit feed.
4) All designs must somehow incorporate âthe letterâ or an interpretation thereof.
5) To be eligible for the prize, the winning designer must agree to have their pattern available for free via the CraftLit website for 3 months after the conclusion of the contest. After that time all rights are retained in full by the designer and the free feed will be removed, pronto.
6) Entries should at a minimum include pictures of the final product and the complete pattern. Everything else we leave up to you. Let your imaginations run wild!

And to sweeten the pot, The March Hare will donate 10% of the proceeds from the sales of The Scarlet Letter yarn to CraftLit for the duration of the contest. (Including the 3 month free pattern period for those inspired by the winning projectâ)

So there you be CraftLit faithful. Go forth and create!

To Enter

Send your pictures of the final product and complete "pattern" (or instructions for whatever you've created) to the Craftlit email. Winners will be contacted via email before the announcement is made "on the air".

Contact us today! Questions? Email!

You can thank (blame?) Dawn for this.

A spinning wheel too far.

The song I've been living by lately ("Just Breathe (2am)" by Anna Nalik). Perhaps you should download a copy too, from iTunes (to make up for me using the song on the 'Cast...)?

A competition you should take part in so you can be featured like my bud Lyn.

Some amazing tapestry sites to look at: Barbara Heller's (look at Gallery One and see the 9/11 tapestry and the Afghani woman...yeesh! Tapestry never looked so amazing to me before!); American Tapestry Alliance; Desert Tapestry Weavers--our local hookup; Selvedge a textile mag;
Textile the British textile mag; awesome tapestry looms (to buy!).

Tonight!
Chapters 1-2.

Kaylea of Chicago is our new Charm Winner for the Month of October. Debbie Brunner is the dyer responsible for these spectacular socks, and there was something else to put up here but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.


See?
Still mushy in the brain.

OH!
Come see me on Facebook. I made a little group for us there and am trying to get a podcast player onto the apps page.

I tried my best to eliminate the background noise in the interviews you'll hear. I found it easier to hear on headphones on my machine.
I hope it works for you too.

What you'll hear about: My Bag!

DeeDee's Racoon


Leslie and her fiber!Janel Laidman's Class (Chameleon Color Works!)


Jennie of the Lace and Upcoming Book

The September donors who will receive sock yarn from CheekyRedHead or a CraftLit charm from Jen Minnis Designs are:
Beverly of CT's name was drawn to receive Sock Yarn! (YAY! General rowdiness!)
and
Lauren of CA's name was drawn to receive the CraftLit charm! (Huzzah! Much rejoicing!)

We'll be getting those things out to you asap.

Today we end Tristan and Isolde (sob). We ALSO have a treat from Listener Jen Massey who recorded a retelling of Tristan and Isolde by Robin Williamson in a book called The Wise and Foolish Tongue.

We ALSO (o there's so much!) will soon have a series of Haute Men of CraftLit goodies, again, thanks to Jen Minnisâour resident artsy type, Erin, Dawn and the irrepressible Heidiâhumor wordsmiths extraordinarÃ. Bless their talent!

And Kate, member of The Boogie Knights, singers of "Tristan The Knight So Brave"! I LOVE the member names on this page!

And next week...SOAR, then...Frankenstein!!!

This episode: Isolde floats (like small rocks or bits of wood) or doesn't burn like...not-a-witch..., Tristan finds a Fairy Dog, and then finds another Isolde!

The drama!

Next week is the end of ol' T&I...then on to The Romantics and Frankenstein!

And, of course, don't forget to donate during the last months of the year! You'll be entered in the drawing for the Jen Minnis charms (check out her website button the on the right!) and also SOCK YARN from CheekyRedhead! (It's like buttah.)

So here are the cool links: the mag that likes us, the improvement on creating knitting graph paper, Tristan's Leap, and an artist's rendition of the same, Glastonbury, it's Abbey and history, and some of the Arthurian accouterments, and I forgot to mention a blog to watch and a piece of knitting that is as spectacular as it is ingenious.

And, of course, your Liminal Space.

My Lords, if you would hear a high tale of love and of death, here is that of Tristan and Queen Isolde (Iseult), how to their full joy, but to their sorrow also, they loved each other and how at last they died of that love together upon one day, she by him, and he by her.

By Joseph Bedier

Translated by H. Belocq

Now, about 300. It is NOT like the Terminator movies. For one thing the photography is a thing of beauty even if you don't like the movie. For another, yes there is a lot of shouting and sword fighting but the emphasis is on love of a husband and wife for each other, for their family, their city, their country and their culture. Drawn in broad terms, granted, but we ARE talking about Spartans here. Not a lot of subtlety. As well as the comic book version. Also not known for subtlety.

However, when we began watching it, it was clear that this movie was being drawn in heroic, epic terms. That made me instantly think of how the Spartans themselves would have thought and told the story ... in fact, the story is being told by a Spartan. Watching the whole movie as being seen through their eyes made the movie entirely enjoyable for me, as well as those themes mentioned above.

Heavens, look at how much I wrote. Not that I'm passionately defending it or anything! :-D

To stave off your appetite until next week, you can watch
this goofy movie. Before there was a Blazing Saddle...before Frankenstein was Young...there were...The Corsican Brothers.

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Our humble podcast has been graced by the Editor-in-Chief of SoHo Publishing's Knit.1 magazineÃïïAdina Klein (SoHo also does Vogue Knitting and Knit Simple).

Aside from being awful fun to talk to, Adina is a knitter, crocheter, painter, sketcher, purveyor of fine books (new ones!), and--my fave--a Nationally Ranked Scrabble Champ.

Really!
How cool is that!?!

We might get a chance to talk to her again later this year. I'll keep you posted.

So, kick back, enjoy a peek into the secret world of Knitting Mag creation, then go get yourself a copy of Knit.1's new Green Issue. Chock full-a good stuff.

And for those who are non-knitters (I know you're out there!) you may want to take a look at the instructions at the back of the magazine. They're so clear, it may convince you to pick up some pointy sticks.

Me?

I'm off to weave for a bit.

No, really!

I was just listening to episode 48, and I was curious about the last line in Congratulatory, which describes the winding sheet of the candle dripping onto Carton's sleeve. I got that it's an obvious omen of death, but I just couldn't wrap my head around how it would be possible to combine a burial shroud and a candle. So, I did a little internet searching and found this explanation:

[a] mass of solidified drippings of grease clinging to the side of a candle, resembling a sheet folded in creases, and regarded in popular superstition as an omen of death or calamity (OED).

Apparently, in Scottish tradition the same association is made between candle drippings and death:

"The common tallow candle in burning often gutters, and the tallow runs over the edge and down the side of the candle. It soon hardens. When the flame consumes the candle, at times the little column formed by the gutter is left standing unconsumed on the edge of the candle. It is called a "coffin-spehl," and is looked upon with suspicion as portending a death in the family at no very distant period."

Based on those two bits of folklore, I'm guessing that there is an association between candle drippings and burial shrouds because: a) the creased wax simply resembles the cloth of a shroud, and b) this creased wax is what remains of the candle after the flame has burnt out, the extinguishing of light, of course, being symbolic of death.

Some words for this chapter:
escutcheon the shield of a family crest.

"the merry Stuart who sold it" That was Charles II.

Convulsionists Um...think "Holy Rollers," an ecstatic religious group

Some words here:
the heavy drag a carriage brake

the chase the hunt

the chain of the shoe chain connected to the brake (shoe)

SHIRT!

!

And, please visit to support Katie who has "shirted" us.












And Carrie left this note:

More random information for you - the Bedlam mental hospital in London still exists - it is now a building called Salisbury House off London Wall and Finsbury Circus in central London and houses several law firms' offices among other things including the London office of the company I work for! (you might say not much change there then!). Although the office parts have been altered and updated the stairwells are still much as I imagine they always have been complete with tiled walls and it is a very strange mixture of a building to walk around in.

"With over a million hits to StitchNPitch.com in its first few months, we knew this program was going to be something special," Patty Parrish, Executive Director of TNNA, explains. "Stitch N' Pitch is sweeping the Nation. The response from baseball Clubs, the needlearts industry and fans is overwhelming. Stitch N' Pitch creates a unique and fun environment for families, singles, couples, old, young, kids, women and yes, even men!"

Watch carefully and you might "catch" a knitting contest, team mascots wearing handmade colorful scarves, images of men knitting, counted cross-stitch frames, teaching tables full of children learning how to needlepoint, a Ceremonial 1st Pitch with a ball of yarn and so much more!! Special Stitch N' Pitch gift bags, giveaways and surprises will round out each fantastic event. Local needlearts retailers, wholesalers, guilds and groups will come by car, bus and train to be a part of this new American phenomenon - Stitch N' Pitch!

Enter Creative & Fun Contest - Just for the Fans!!
CRAFT Magazine's Stitch N' Pitch Contest! The contest is open to everyone to enter in their own baseball theme craft in the categories of knitting, crochet, needlepoint, cross-stitch, and embroidery. The contest kicks-off on April 4th with the deadline for submissions on May 31st.

HIV positive children in Kenya need
blankets to keep them warm at night and to keep fever at bay, and
also simply to have a soft, comforting object of their very own.
These children own almost nothing, and a blanket handmade with care
especially for them would show them that someone, even someone very
far away, cares.

This blanket drive is part of the Slum Doctor Program, a grassroots
organization whose mission is "to lift the burden of despair for
people impacted by AIDS in Africa by providing hope, medicine, food,
education, and dignity." For more information visit
slumdoctor.wordpress.com. We're asking that blankets be made of a natural fiber or high quality acrylic, so they will be easy to keep clean, and that they be sized for children ages 0-8. We're also
asking that if you do plan to cast on for Kenya, you email
slumdoctor@gmail.com. The blankets will be brought to Kenya by
volunteers, and they need to have an estimate of how many they will
be carrying with them. The deadline for donations is June 15th.
Finished blankets should be sent to the Slum Doctor Program, P.O. Box
2156, Bellingham, WA 98227-2156.

From various sources -
As in England, early lawmakers in this country adopted 10 as the age of consent.
The age of consent in England was raised from 12 (which is what it was when James was born in 1843) to 13 in 1875 and then to 16 in 1886.
The Factory Act from 1844 reduced the hours of work for children between 8 and 13 to six and a half a day, either in the morning or afternoon, no child being allowed to work in both on the same day, except on alternate days, and then only for ten hours
The Factory Act, 1891 raising the minimum age at which a child can be set to work from ten to eleven.
So the perspective on children was a little different at that point, T.O.T.S. (funny that) being published in 1898. Accepting that these children are not from the working class they still would not have fallen under the societal view as young innocents.
Thanks for the great read.

the bottom border was instinct with some Jewish numerology thrown in; the neckband was charted but also adapted the little "entry motif" before the zig-zag. I used a lot of combinations of 7 (Sam's birthday - 7/7/94, born at 10:10 a.m., and his bar mitzvah is 7/7/07 in the Western world) and C'hai - so there are 18 stitches in the zig-zag repeat, and I'll do 9 of them, which makes 18 of the triangles....

The yarn in the tallit is qiviut, which I found not in Alaska where I grew up, but online from Caryll's Designs.

Although James had rejected in the beginning of his career "spirit-rappings and ghost-raising", in the 1880s he become interested in the unconscious and the supernatural. In 1908 he wrote that "Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are not 'ghosts' at all, as we now know the ghost, but goblins, elves, imps, demons as loosely constructed as those of the old trials for whichcraft; if not, more pleasingly, fairies of the legendary order, wooing their victims forth to see them dance under the moon." Virginia Woolf thought that Henry James's ghost have nothing in common with the violent old ghosts - "the blood-stained captains, the white horses, the headless ladies of dark lanes and windy commons." Edmund Wilson was convinced that the story was "primarily intended as a characterization of the governess".

Loved your comments on the Fog Index. I'm a technical editor, and I have the following quote by Melville on my wall at work: "A man of true science uses but few hard words, and only those when none other will serve his purpose; whereas the smatterer in science thinks that by mouthing hard words he proves that he understands hard things."

Allergic reaction to mosquito bites identified for first timeâ"skeeter syndrome"
MILWAUKEEâBug bites are a standard annoyance for those who spend time outside during the summer months. The consequence for most is uncomfortable swelling and itching at the site of the bite for a short period of time. However, young children, immune deficient persons and those previously unexposed to mosquitoes are at increased risk for a severe reaction to mosquito bites according to a study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Canadian researchers recently identified this reaction as "skeeter syndrome," defined as mosquito-bite induced large, local inflammatory reactions accompanied by fever.

Large local reactions to mosquito bites are under diagnosed and sometimes assumed to be infectious in nature when in fact, they are the result of an allergic reaction. In this study, researchers studied five healthy children between the ages of two and four with no history of allergy to insect bites. Each had been diagnosed with cellulitis, a bacterial infection of the skin and tissue that is usually found on the face, neck or legs. The children developed extreme redness, swelling, warmth and inflammation within hours of a witnessed mosquito bite. Several months later the children were tested for allergy to mosquito. Blood tests confirmed that the children had been misdiagnosed: the symptoms they experienced were the result of an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite, not cellulitis.

People with skeeter syndrome should minimize their exposure to mosquitoes to avoid experiencing an adverse reaction. It is important to increase the awareness of skeeter syndrome so those affected can avoid unnecessary diagnostic procedures and antibiotic treatments.

[From: "Skeeter syndrome." J Allergy Clin Immunol 1999;104: 705-707.]

Governess Gone Goth

Jane Austen's novels have been repackaged as chick-lit to reflect our modern conception of her as a romantic novelist. But her world is less comforting than we think, argues Laura Thompson...

...It all started in fine non-literary style: with Colin Firth. The scene in the 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in which Colin got his shirt wet was, almost certainly, the moment that opened the door and let the modern world in upon the quiet, oil-lit writing desk at Chawton Cottage. And when Firth played Mark Darcy in the film of Bridget Jones's Diary, the deal was sealed: Pride and Prejudice was on its way to fame and fortune.

...What on earth would Jane Austen have made of it all?

Well, she would certainly have laughed - "I dearly love a laugh," says Elizabeth Bennet, in the voice of her creator - and she would have enjoyed all the money, because nobody was more aware of its importance. Elizabeth and her sister Jane might have charm to spare, plus wit and good temper to keep fear of the future at bay, but their genteel poverty means that the men who marry them are not just lovers; they are personal relief missions from lives beyond contemplation.

And this acute alertness to the significance of money - to the humiliating gulf between the shillings that buy Elizabeth's hair ribbons and Darcy's Â30,000 a year - is just one of the many aspects of Jane Austen that has been lost to a contemporary audience.

....Actually, there is rather more to Elizabeth than the perfection we behold in her (and ourselves). What, for example, is one to make of her ambiguous joke that she began to love Darcy on "first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley"? Sir Walter Scott, for one, thought she meant exactly what she said; and I think he had a point.

....But the novels as a whole are rather less comforting. Indeed, they are, in some ways, terrifying. There is something appalling about the lack of illusions with which Jane Austen viewed her little world. To censor out such a judgment - or to condemn it as "male" - is to do her an extreme disservice.

Take, for example, the character of Charlotte Lucas, one of Austen's finest, who cuts through the nonsense now waffling round Pride and Prejudice like a particularly acid lemon. Her presence lurks sombrely behind Elizabeth's lovely lightness: the two girls are faces of the same coin, expressions of their creator's joyful esprit on the one hand and cold eye on the other.

Like Elizabeth, Charlotte has a lively mind, but, unlike her friend, she has no physical allure. A quirk of nature has taken her out of the orbit of men such as Darcy. And, because she is plain, she sees the world plainly. She calmly perceives its limitations: the ruthless judgments of its marriage market, the life sentence of inhabiting its tight social circles.

Seeing the world, she also sees the possibility of falling off its edge. "Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want." She snaps up Mr Collins, the terrible suitor whom Elizabeth has the freedom to reject. "I am not romantic, you know. I never was."

She is the stony reality at the heart of Pride and Prejudice. She tells a woman's story, but in a way that is utterly remote from feminine convention: with scant emotion, appealing to nothing other than rationality. And, like her creator, she has remarkably little to do with cosy readings of The Jane Austen Book Club and communal swoons over Mr Darcy.

...If Pride and Prejudice can be so easily claimed by the Grazia brigade, why should the other books be any different? It is not difficult, after all, to read what one wants to read in a novel. Every reader does it, to an extent. But the landscape of what is seen in books is becoming increasingly impoverished. Indeed, it might be that the reality of literature no longer lies within its words. As Jane Austen flourishes, the literary sense that she possessed in its most refined form is slowly dying: the irony would have amused her.