On to Kautokeino

It's been a busy week here in Lake Wobegon. The past day was filled with computer dawdling -- doing things I don't like or understand for the greater good of the business. I separated my work Facebook account, and made a new twitter feed.  Please check them out.  On FB I'm Laura Ricketts Designs, and on twitter I'm Laura Ricketts @LRickettsDesign. 

It's amazing that it takes a few lines to write that, but all day to pull off (and, I'm not even sure it's done correctly). 

Meanwhile, knitting and charting continues on.  Saturday, MARCH FIRST, we had freezing rain, and about 4 inches of snow on top of that. Snow and swim meets mean more knitting time.  I finished a lovely Finnish mitten, and started a Swedish one in the same day.  I hope to someday get the second one done.

If I pick up my Fall travel saga where I left off, I believe I stranded all of you readers in Alta, Norway.  I was only there two nights. I was in a lovely little campsite just South of town on the road to Kautokeino and Karasjok, but it was there, in the City of Northern Lights, that I saw my first northern lights.  So beautiful and magical, and surprisingly, very difficult to photograph. For this, I have only my memories.

Early in the morning, I awoke, ate breakfast, and then went through the books I had checked out from the Sámi National Parliament building in Karasjok.  I am a proud card carrying member, and thanks to librarian Kåre Balto, I was able to check out books on the duodji from Karasjok, and return them to the Kautokeino Sámi school.

About 10, I packed up the rental car, and began my drive South to Kautokeino. The road follows the Alta river through a beautiful narrow gorge. At the Karasjok/Kautokeino road, I turned right and went through some high, desert like country, stopped off to see the small village of Máze, and then onto Kautokeino.

I had arrived!

Always winter, and never Christmas

Our weekend in New Orleans felt like just the right length of time away, but it's never nice to return to Narnia under the reign of the White Witch -- where it is always winter, but never Christmas.

The frost level in the ground is 4 feet deep.  Friends have had their pipes burst, and ice dams on their roof. One friend's daughter's roof collapsed, and the ceiling came down on her newborn twins' nursery.  Thankfully, they were not in it at the time.

The first day I was back at the homeless shelter where I volunteer, I passed these poor trucks on the street.

I have no idea how long it would take them to dig out.  The snow is like an archeological dig: some soft and drifty, layers of ice, and all that yucky, crunchy dirt from the plow. Meanwhile, my son continues to have fun in the winter weather.

I, however, wander around singing Christina Rosetti's classic, "In the Deep Midwinter," and trying not to sound too mournful:

In the deep midwinter, frosty wind laid low

Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow

In the deep midwinter, (unfortunately, not) long ago.

Friends in Ireland are posting pictures of crocuses peeking up through warm, brown dirt. Crocuses!! I can't even remember what warm, brown dirt is like! Although, we had a rip-roaring thunderstorm a few days ago, complete with dramatic lightening, I still can't see anything outside, but crusty snow and empty branches.

On the work front, I am having a lovely time, researching, charting and knitting mittens. I regularly am emailing back and forth with curators and friends in Norway, Finland and Paris. I turned in a knitted project to Piecework last week, and have another getting ready for May publication. I have the article yet to complete, and three other book projects and two articles to tackle.

I am also negotiating with a couple Nordic events regarding knitting classes, and other venues as well.  

The kids have had a crazy schedule since Christmas break: nine snow days, I think, and countless 2-hour delays.  My work has really suffered from it. Starting tomorrow, the administration is implementing a "make-up" plan that will add the missed hours before spring testing: they will add 43 minutes to each school day.

I'm hoping I can add that productivity to my day, as well.

Dr. Who, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and love Da Bomb

Two weeks ago, my loving husband whisked me away from all of this, and down to New Orleans for the weekend.  It was a delayed birthday present -- to take me to my 49th State. With Louisiana down, I have just South Dakota to go.

We landed at the Louis Armstrong airport after leaving eight fresh inches of snow up north.

Our first day on the ground, we traveled around some of the sights outside of the city -- Oak Alley and Laura's Creole plantation, and a swamp boat tour in a bayou. It was wonderful to be in a French area again, and the food!  Oh! The food...

I had alligator, crawfish, shrimp, red beans, and étouffée. I had me some crab, some catfish, sweet potatoes, beignet, and coffee with chicory.  Mmm… I miss New Orleans.

The view of Oak Alley's 300 year old trees from the second story of the plantation.

Swamp tour in 35F weather with sleet

Perhaps, the most fun surprise was on Saturday, though. That is, it was a surprise for my hubbo. While researching what was happening when we were down there, I happen to see Comic Con was in town.  "That's fun!" Then, I saw Matt Smith would be there, and I immediately bought tickets.

Matt Smith has just retired from being the eleventh (twelfth? Who's counting?) Dr. Who from the series of the same name. Dr. Who just celebrated it's 50th anniversary, and the Christmas special was the highest rated TV show in UK history.  That was Matt Smith's last episode, and New Orleans was his first public appearance since then.

Everything I had read about him beforehand said how nice he was. I've really liked his interviews, as well.

Well, I went equipped with my Dr. Who-loving son's 11th-doctor's sonic screwdriver. We wandered around looking at the weirdos and the wares. There were some really clever costumes!

Exterminate! Exterminate!

Don't Blink!

Before too long, it was time to line up for our photo op with #11! Here's a pic of ol' bow-legs, himself.

He was kept behind scenes as much as possible, to try to engender sweet innocents like myself to give up hard-earned cash for such an opportunity as this:

Only shiny, because it is a picture of a picture...

Those four seconds were pure magic. He leaned back in his director's chair, ready to put his hand out in a "peace" sign, as he did with all the other photos. I pulled out the sonic screwdriver.

"Could you hold this?" I asked.

"Certainly!" he answered, snatching it out of my hand and flourishing it in one fell swoop, almost like he had done it before.

Click.

"See ya later," was what he said as he handed the screwdriver back to me, but I knew he meant, "Will you be my Future Companion?"

"Thank you," was the only reply necessary. And, by it I meant, "Look behind you, you dolt! That's my Rory. -- I choose Rory."

We parted on amicable terms.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, friends and readers! 2014 started with a cold, icy blast here in the Midwestern states. My kids had already been home for the two weeks of the holidays, when Snowmagedeon blew into our region. A cold, polar vortex brought the temperatures well below zero fahrenheit. Snow mounted above twelve inches, and the winds blew to bring the wind chill to about -30F. 

I have lived in cold places before.  When I lived in Montreal and Mongolia, the weather bottomed out at -40F/C several times. And, while I do not fear the cold, I certainly do respect it.  Add three kids with cabin fever and cancelled school after a two week vacation, though, and I begin to understand why some wild creatures eat their young.

See that?  That's a picture I took of the school parking lot snow pile when I went to get the kids.  That's a handicap parking sign on the left at the normal height.  That's a lot of snow.

it was interesting to see the dog's reaction to the cold.  She's stand at the door whimpering (like she's doing right now), but when we'd open the door, she'd back away quickly flashing us a look that said, "you're kidding, right???"

Now, the snow is slowly melting as we are back to above normal temperatures. I can see grass peeking out from the blanket of white from my window.

I'm also back to "normal" work: charting patterns, writing designs, and making submissions. For the past three weeks or more I was not able to concentrate on these things.  Instead I had lots of travel projects and… quilting once again! My dear friend, Apryl, challenged me to a quilt-along she was interested in in December.  It was from the temecula quilt company blog, specifically their Christmas quilt.  It really was beautiful, and because I love Apryl so much, I decided to do it!

Well, except for the 2" finished star blocks (EEK!), it was a lot of fun!  Here is the finished project:

It is a relatively small wall hanging.  The center area is 2.5' x 3.5'.  

It got me on the quilting train again, though.  I dug around and found several half done projects.  They are more or less complete now, but as I haven't yet taken a picture of them, I'll close off this day with the one I am so happy about:

Unfortunately, there is no way to convey the beauty of this fabric.  It is from Oakshott fabric company, a British family run company that imports gorgeous fabrics from Madras, India.  This series is called Lipari.  The weft is black and the warp is the color.  As a result, these fabrics have such depth -- they just shimmer!

I now adore this fabric and long to make a wall hanging out of the Impressions Fat 8ths. This series has a white weft. Check out some of the projects people have made with this stuff! 

Now, I'm off to knit again.