The meteorite is the source of the light, and the meteor's just what we see.

Holy Geminids!

Tonight is the closing of the Geminid meteor shower. I have an alarm set for 2 A.M., but I'm wary I'll push the snooze button one too many times. I did, however, check it out last night. Only for about a half hour, and well before 2 A.M., but I got about 5 sights of stars a-shooting! Mom, Dad, and myself set out into the 34 degree night with some amazing layers, a chair, a Droid (with one of those fancy constellation apps), a flask of Tullamore Dew, and my camera and tripod. Oh, and did I mention the pack of dogs? It was pretty cute. Here are a couple of night shots:

Daddy in his fancy coveralls getting oriented by the constellations

Very out-of-focus view

Star shots are much harder than you'd think...

The cloud cover that eventually sent me inside

Winter trees and a meteor shower. Mm..

On my second trip out, I got distracted...

Ok, so I didn't get any action shots, but I don't claim to be a professional. These guys, however, might:

"Gems from Geminid meteor shower"

Also, I found a nice, if outdated, tutorial on meteor shower photography here:

Meteor photography tips

There's nothing better than getting comfy under the infinite sky and watching stars come down. Especially with good company and a little whiskey... And, if you're really fancy and a fan of my very favorite musical artist, playing "Emily" (by Joanna Newsom) while you do it. (Here's a video I got of it live - not the greatest audio OR video, but beautiful none-the-less.)



In other, more crafty news, I began my first knitting project yesterday morning! My interest in the knitting scene was piqued by my friend Ralph, who is among the most precious of all human beings on this planet.

Ralph, knitting on an Oxford back porch on a hungover Sunday morning

He gave me a little basics lesson right on that porch, and I was hooked! He, however, is a little more advanced than I, so I had to start at the beginning...

Have you ever realized how amazing YouTube is? In addition to providing an outlet for remixed news-reel (complete with autotune) and  parrots dancing to "Whip My Hair", there are some seriously useful DIY video tutorials. Such as the one I used to get me started with my knitting:

Knitting Basics - Lesson I

And so, Krista taught me how to cast on and start knitting. Which is pretty much as far as I've gotten. Granted, I'm doing a scarf without any frills, so that's pretty much all I need to know until the very end. I'll keep you updated on how it goes. Here she is so far:

As with all of my projects, I am learning the hard way about the idiosyncrasies of the medium, which is just my way of learning. But it's going pretty well so far, and I've already decided what my next project will be: a sweater for my pup! Fern has been feeling left out, in Mom's barrage of sweatered Yorkies, so my goal is to mend the situation by the end of the year! How precious will this little bit look in a sweater:

Any votes on yarn color/texture?

You came in with the bree---eeze, on Sunday morning

Oh, Sundays... I have and will always love a Sunday in Summerland. Nowhere better to spend a Sunday; it's the God's honest truth.

So, what did I do this particular Sunday? Several things. Waking up to delicious coffee and a request from my mother, I went to help her with the sad veterinary task of putting a sweet old dog to sleep. Sounds like a bummer, but it all depends on how you look at those things. Anyway, this was followed by returning home to prepare several Bloody Maries (uncertain about the plural form here) and the bulk of a delicious Sunday lunch. After the meal, my parents and I piled into Daddy's red pick-up to take a field-trip to the chicken house. 

Built Ford tough (or something)

Now let me make it clear that this is no ordinary chicken house. Instead of poultry, it houses all of the accrued junk of years past from the Garrison household (and beyond) with hopes of putting things that have grown useless to use in one way or another. 

My goal in the chicken house this Sunday: to find wood for making frames. And my, did we. 

Motherload! Dad shows me the stack of old cedar/pine/?

Further plundering revealed other treasures:

Oh, the memories...

Old anesthesia machine?

After gathering the loot, we rode back to the house, where I convinced my father (with some difficulty) to help me figure out this whole frame-making situation. Dad, being a woodworking god (both in reality and most definitely in his own mind), was a/an *insert respectful yet wary adjective here* teacher, but, by the end of the freezing-cold endeavor, we managed to get a frame set into some semblance of the idea I had in my head.

Wood workin'

Since I'm trying to get to where I can do this on my own, Dad dumbed things down a bit in the way of power tools. He cut the starting pieces into 3.5 inch-wide strips with his hand-held power saw, but then I got to use the hand miter saw for the angles. Then we fit the pieces together as best we could, with the help of a few adjustments made by the master with the power saw. Finally, we used yet another power tool to make indentions into the angled sides, glued wedges into the indentions, and clamped the whole thing together.

Trying to show me what's up with clamps

Cutting it down to size

Tutelage from the gods

Beer was definitely necessary by the close of things...

Hopefully you will soon get to see the entire project come together, frame and all!

In the meantime, if anybody wants to get me something adorable and hand-crafted for Christmas, check this out:

Harold and Maude hand puppets

Au revoir!

Made with glue, and a glove, and some pliers.

Today is the day to start a blog. 

Why today, you ask?

Mostly because it was tonight that I finally finished the embroidered header you see above these words. Haha, but seriously... What would a craft blog be without a hand-sewn header?

Not that this will be, absolutely, a craft blog. I do intend to let the creative juices flow in whatever way I see fit. For instance, I can give a mean photo tour of a space or an event. That will probably happen at least a time or two. Maybe a few musical suggestions. A recipe every now and again. Perhaps even a gardening post, once my green thumb-bearing mom teaches me the ropes and helps me get started on a tree-planting expedition on what I hope will one day be my own homestead. The possibilities are endless...

Anyhow. We'll start with cross-stitch.

I embarked on my journey into the world of needlework earlier this year, when a friend of mine got me excited about cross-stitch. I'm a lover of music, in particular of Erykah Badu, so I decided to start with some cross-stitched Baduizms. Wanna see?

Baduizm #1: Candace (the friend) helped me with this one. Hand drew the tree and wrote out the lyrics. One could say it was a complete collaboration. I've always loved this line...

Baduizm #2: Continuing the apple theme. I stole the apple design from one of my mom's old template books, which were extremely fun to play with in the beginning. The lettering came from the same book, and I just designed it by hand. There are still visible pencil marks that I'm working on figuring out how to clean up. 

I even made my newlywed best friend and her husband a little nerdy (and belated) wedding present:

My latest projects are going to be gifts, for the most part, so they will have to come later, once in the hands of their rightful owners. Let's just say there will be some Buffy, a little bit of Clueless, and maybe even some Robyn. Not to mention the use of some new techniques I've learned from this book:

Seriously though, this book is amazing for several reasons. First of all, it's cute as hell. Call me trite, but I love an instructive book with accessible language and adorable pictures. Also, it's simple, informative, and full of iron-ons and templates for future projects! I will most likely elaborate and demonstrate some of these things later on, so keep an eye out.

Ok, so that's enough, I believe, for my toe-dipping into the blogging world. Any suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated!