Pumpkin Hat Nation

In honor of the holiday, photographic proof of my recent efforts. My stoop is a veritable patch!

I haven't yet mastered the hat sample self-portrait, but I'm working on it.

Happy day to all you 'weeners out there! :) When you emerge from your insulin comas, don't forget to come back tomorrow for Official OysterGirl Webstore Launch Day!

Five minute weekend

Where did the past three days go? Wasn't it just Thursday? Good thing I now have a camera to keep track of what I'm doing and where I've been.

Friday night, Liz and Stefani had some folks over for an early All Hallows' Eve party. The refreshments were delightful! My favorite was the Cemetery (Brownies) Cake. That's green coconut standing in for grass. Awesome!



In honor of the festivities, Liz busted out the homedone Topsy Tail. Holla!

Guests were encouraged to attend in their holiday finery, including Halloween turtlenecks, vests, sweaters and headwear. Karla won the doorprize for this delightful ensemble. I think it was the Velour skirt that pushed her over the top. I wish I had a photo of the prize itself--a painting of clown faces that can be hung with equal success in any direction (including diagonally!)

The next day, Katie brought me to the airport to catch the first of two flights that would bring me to New York for Brett and Caren's wedding. I changed planes in Charlotte, which had been a site of misfortune for me on my previous trip back East in August--tarmac delays in Nashville combined with an unusually short layover forced a sprint through Charlotte's surprisingly large airport. Fortunately, this time Charlotte proved much more hospitable. I even had time to admire the charming rockers sprinkled intermittently throughout. I snapped this shot as I rode past on a moving sidewalk.

My flight from Charlotte arrived at LaGuardia without a hitch, my luggage came quickly and I had no problem getting my rental car. Sadly, it then took me HALF AN HOUR to exit LaGuardia onto the Grand Central Parkway. Worst. Airport. Signage. EVER. After I return the car tomorrow, I am seriously never driving in Queens again.

The wedding was this morning, and it was beautiful! The weather wasn't warm, but was sunny enough for the ceremony to proceed outside. Here is Maid-of-Honor Liz:

Brett, happily awaiting his bride:

Caren was escorted down the aisle by her grandfather:

A lovely view, a lovely couple, a lovely day! Mazel tov, Mr. & Mrs. W!

Back home tomorrow--four more days until the big store launch!

Somewhere, over the rain . . .

. . . and that somewhere would be right here in Music City, U.S.A. Today was the third gloomy day in a row, and the first Wednesday this fall that I haven't been able to take my Wednesday morning kiddos out on the playground during my time with them--boo!

The overwhelmingly most popular item in the OysterGirl webstore has been those baby pumpkin hats. So far I have made six, and have three in inventory. But the season for squash-related headwear is coming swiftly to a close, and so I've been working on designing some new items with an eye towards upcoming holidays. Yesterday I posted a demo picture of a child-size elf hat (you know, for Christmas), and today, I present a preview of the baby version:

And if Christmas is right around the corner, then Valentine's Day must be just up the road a piece. For which I've been working on the heart scarf . . .

. . . with coordinating hat in sizes for kids (yes I realize that it's too big for the dolly)

. . . and grownups-ish.

Any ideas you have for further holiday- or otherwise seasonal-related items are extremely welcome! Please leave a comment or e-mail me at oystergirl [at] bellsouth [dot] net.

Long-awaited rain in the 'Ville

I don't know whether or not you've heard, but we've been having a fairly significant drought here in Tennessee. Or at least, we had been, until the past few days. Apparently, Mother Nature has decided to refill our reservoirs in the matter of five or so days. Dee-lightful.

Our week of wetness kicked off last Thursday, when we had a tornado watch and thunderstorm warnings. Though I don't think we actually had any tornadic activity touch down in the area, we had some really strong winds. When I drove to and from my Thursday babysitting job, I saw oodles yards strewn with fallen branches. And then when I returned home, I noticed this slight aberration in my own backyard:





Yeah, so apparently I'm not super-observant when leaving my house before coffee. Perhaps I oughtn't be driving a car. Hmmmmm.

Anyway, I feel fortunate that this tree didn't actually fall *on* anything, and I have some friends with chainsaws who have offered to help. Looks like I should be good on firewood for a while.

I bought a digital camera from another Nashvillian on eBay, so rather than having him ship it, I just went over and picked it up (about 10 minutes away). Hence my much-anticipated return to blogging! I have been meaning to get back into writing here, and several folks have actually requested that I do (for which I am extremely grateful), but I was having a hard time getting started without having illustrations to add veracity to my wild tales. That, and I'm just unfocused.

But I've been knitting up a storm, and as soon as the storming outside lets up, I'll be out in the late-day sun trying to capture that ideal dappled sunlight for some of my projects. I just happened into the perfect lighting by accident my first time out, and discovered after the fact that not all daylight is created equal. This is hardly news to you experienced photographers, but in this aspect of running oystergirlknits.com (as well as so many others), I am a complete novice.

Here is one of my accidental photographic masterpieces:



Just look at that . . . doesn't it make you feel like you're looking at an LL Bean catalog or something? Well, as I say, that was an accident. I had tried to take some others with the camera that Katie and Scott very generously loaned me, but they didn't quite work out as I'd hoped. Here's one for you to see by comparison:



Yes, it's an elf hat. You know, for Christmas.

Just haven't been able to catch that perfect lighting again . . . but now that I have a camera of my very own, I'm determined to persevere.

I did get a couple of photos tonight of a prototype in action--the very first OysterGirl doggy sweater. This is Eli, our Bible study mascot and just about the cutest canine you ever did see. His mama, Lydia, is a big Ole Miss fan.





Well, I guess that's it for tonight! I really am hoping to update the blog more frequently now that I have a camera. My friend Adrian does a great job of tying in her blog with her photography business, and I'll be trying to emulate what she's done. By which I mean copy her. By which I mean steal her ideas.

Thanks for reading! T-minus nine days until the official launch of the OysterGirlKnits.com webstore!

22 days and counting . . .

The official launch date of the OysterGirl store is November 1, but there are already some items up for sale! Head on over and check them out (click on the logo to go to the store):




Lots of stuff to report about what's been going on during the (gasp!) THREE MONTHS since I last posted. Once the store is up and running, I'll be making a point to post more regularly again. Please keep checking back . . . I promise that I'll be gettin' back on the blog horse soon!

Day 25 - Adios, au revoir, auf wiedersehen . . . good night!

How did it get to be the end of my trip? This time tomorrow, I will be back in Tennessee . . . provided somebody picks me up from the airport . . .

I sang (and attempted to play the 12-string) "Farther Along" in church this morning, and the fine folks of Spartansburg UMC were very kind, as always. This afternoon/evening, my Aunt Sue and her husband Lee came over to visit from Meadville, and we had a lovely dinner and a nice visit.

We have to hit the road at 9:30 a.m., so I should probably be packing right now. But first I'll tie up a few loose ends.

When I was at Papa and Gorgeous's in Vancouver, I was astounded to discover that Papa had assembled himself a wine rack made out of PVC pipe. This was of particular interest to me, since my Dad (the vintner and brewmaster), had done the same thing a few years back.



And remember when we went to the Amish store here in Pennsylvania mere days ago? Well, we didn't take any pictures while we were there. But when I was poking around on my parents' computer, I discovered these two photos of the exterior at Schrock's. In addition to dry goods, Amish schoolbooks (in German), and just about every kind of gummy candy you can imagine (and some you wouldn't want to), they also have turkeys . . .



. . . and peacocks.



They also have really cute puppies for sale, but alas, I have no photos of them to share.

I started on this trip three-and-a-half weeks ago--in part, to get some insight into the question, "What's next?" So it seems like it would be apt to share some of that insight here . . . even though I really *should* be packing. For some reason, I am reluctant to talk too much about the conclusions I have come and am coming to--maybe because I'm afraid they will sound flighty or stupid to other people. But I'm coming out of these 25 days with an inkling of a plan, and since you've been such faithful readers, I guess I can let you in on what there is of it.

You probably don't know who Laurie Berkner is (unless you are reading this from Abbot House #3), but briefly, she is a professional kids' musician. Meaning she writes and performs music for children. A lot of her stuff is played on the Sirius "Kidstuff" channel (#116), as well as on TV. I have previously mentioned the fact that while I was out in Sunriver, I was exposed to a whole bunch of kids' music, of wildly varying quality. Laurie Berkner is good at what she does--and I feel confident that I could be good at it, too. I briefly mentioned this idea here while I was in Oregon--and now that I have had a couple more weeks to marinate in the idea, I have decided to pursue it. It may seem to come out of the blue to some of you--but to me, in a lot of ways, it seems like something I've been preparing to do all my life.

Anyway, once I get home I'm going to start talking to some Nashvillians about what that might mean as far as concrete "next steps." And I'll be looking for a part-time stream of income (possibly at Starbucks), as well as doing some knitting on the side, looking into selling tea and coffee cozies at some of Nashville's local coffee and tea shops, and probably some babysitting.

Okay, seriously . . . must pack. Thanks for reading and going along with me through this journey over the last few weeks. I hope you'll stick around for the new journey about to begin!

Day 24 - Primal Fascinations

Okay, so here's the scoopage on yesterday's festivities. It occurred to me while we were watching the fantastic display that there must be something in our hard-wiring as human beings that fascinates us about sparkling, flashing lights. I mean, on a purely rational level, there isn't any reason for fireworks at all--except we are drawn to the spectacle. And the Canadohta Lake fireworks were, indeed, spectacular.

But first came the picnic! Here is the view from John and Grace's of the aforementioned lake. (It seemed a lot lighter out when I was snapping these pictures.)


Lots of our family was there, including my bro and sister-in-law, all the way from northern Virginia. What's in the blue bag held by Dave, you might ask? Well, I could give you a hundred guesses and you would most likely still not come up with the answer: little rubber duckies, which were distributed to any and all willing recipients.


My dad and Uncle Conrad. Dad is wearing his "Beeriodic Table" sweatshirt, but unfortunately I didn't get a recognizable photo of it.


Our crew from Mayville, New York. For those of you keeping track, all these folks were also at the Hot Fish Shop a week earlier.


Pictured in the yellow shirt is John, our cousin and the founder of the feast. (I didn't get any pictures of his wife, Grace, but she is equally responsible for the festivities!)


Sad to say that we all left hungry, as there was nary a thing to eat.


This is what happened when my mom was testing to see if she had successfully disengaged the flash in anticipation for photographing the upcoming fireworks display. (Hint: She hadn't.)


And now, the fireworks! I don't think that pictures can really do them adequate justice, so I'll offer a bit of explanation. These were launched from right down the hill (you can see the truck in the picture of the lake). So they were pretty much *right* over our heads. Very bright, and very loud.









This is my favorite one. I pointed the camera a bit lower in order to see some of the area from which they were launching the shells. You can see the silhouette of a tree in the white flash.



After the fireworks, things got *really* primal when John lit the big bonfire. The second photo is included in an attempt to give a sense of scale.



Tomorrow is my last full day here in Pennsylvania. Sad, but there's lots of stuff to do that awaits back in Tennessee. Maybe I'll finally get outside for a run tomorrow . . . but don't hold your breath that I do.