October Recap

Recap:

Read:
1. Imprudence by Gail Carriger
2. Lord of the Darkwood by Lian Hearn
3. The Tengu's Game of Go by Lian Hearn
4. The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton by Jeremy Clay

Stitching:
Lots and lots of stitching!!!

Other crafts:
None....stitching overruled everything :)

As you can see, it's been an uneventful month in terms of anything, but stitching. But I can't complain as my WIPs are coming along nicely.

Work is hectic. I had a mini breakdown last week and started crying. I know I'm not the only woman who feels ashamed about crying at work. As an independent woman, you want to think you can be in control of yourself at all times. Enter the crying lag....professionalism down the drain!

I'm okay now. Work just seems to be extremely hectic lately. I'm seriously thinking of taking the entire Thanksgiving week as a vacation. Give myself a mental recharge for a little while.

Bright side, November means more stitching and amigurumi work. I need to finish my ornament exchange and work on Christmas gifts :)

Just got to remember the fun things that await me outside of work!!

Until next time >___<

Oakleigh House - Victorian Mourning

Kristina and I went to Oakleigh the Friday before last for their Mourning in Victorian period event. It focused on Corinne Irwin, one of the previous inhabitants of the house. She passed away from typhoid fever two weeks before her wedding in 1856.

The tour focused on the topic of mourning during the Victorian period. Mourning became an art form during the Victorian period in part due to Queen Victoria who continued to mourn her husband decades after his death. While funeral houses existed, the Victorian period saw the rise of funeral 'warehouses' where you could order mourning attire, wreaths, stationery, etc. 

Sunken Garden

Lion outside entrance of Oakleigh

Staircase to second story

Handmade lace doily

Downstairs they had a small exhibition of mourning attire, announcements, articles, jewelry, and a mourning wreath.

Mourning wreath made of human hair of two families

Mourning fan

Once we got upstairs we were greeted by one of the Oakleigh docents dressed up in mourning attire. She spoke of how a household would be during the mourning period. 

Doorbells would be muffled, the door of the house would be left ajar to let guests inside without disturbing the family. A wreath would be put on the door, mirrors would be covered, and portraits of the recently deceased and those who have already passed away were covered.

This was due to a superstition that if the deceased saw their portrait or looked in the mirror, they would become trapped and possess the mirror or portrait.

Interior of Corrine Irwin's bedroom

In the parlor, chairs were set out for the 'funeral' around a fabric covered coffin.

Our guide told us that during a funeral, guests were seated according to their relationship to the deceased. The family would be seated in a room adjacent to the parlor so guests would not witness their grief.

In the case of Corinne Irwin's fiance, he would have been in a separate room from the guests as well.

The mourning period would last up to two and half years for women depending on the relationship to the deceased. The period for men was extremely short, three months.

Keep in mind that this was mourning for the middle and upper classes. I would think the mourning period would be different for the lower class. Time and circumstances would not allow the family to grieve for long. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that!!)

After the ' funeral', we were allowed to wander the house. Kristina and I saw this lovely writing desk that was inlayed with mother of pearl and other shells. It belonged to Madame Le Vert (Octavia Walton Le Vert), a Mobile socialite and writer.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience and an interesting way to view Oakleigh house. The docents were lovely and eager to talk about the house and other sites around Mobile.

Kristina and I might have to plan a trip to Oakleigh during December for their Christmas events!!

Until next time >___<

October - Last week of stitching

Hi, everyone! Are you giving out candy for Halloween, having a party, or relaxing with a bag of your favorite candy? We are being lazy and eating candy instead of giving it out :P

My last week of stitching sees a tree trunk taking form on my Sampler 4 Saisons pattern. Bad news, I'm running out of my DMC 498....I might have to start the new dye lot!!! Horrors!!

On Sweet Christmas, I didn't make as much progress, but I have a good excuse. I was working on my Christmas exchange ornament. I need to go by the craft store this weekend to look for cording for the ornament. As I told Amanda, with three craft stores in town I should be able to find what I'm looking for.

On Sunday morning I tried the harvest loaves again using muscovado sugar. While they turned out well, the taste wasn't much different from regular brown sugar. I think it might have to do with how much butter and eggs are in the recipe and the absent of any spices to compliment the muscovado sugar.

I think I'll try this again, but I'll switch gears and look for a pumpkin recipe!

The month of November will still be devoted to stitching, but I'll be working on amigurumi too.

Until next time >___<

October - Third week of stitching

Another week gone so it's time for a stitching update :)

I made some more progress on Sampler 4 Saisons....steadily making my way down the tree trunk.

On Sweet Christmas, I was able to finish another motif, the domed Christmas pudding! I don't know about you, but all these desserts make me wish we had a decent bakery in town. Lol I have an insatiable sweet tooth :)

In other news, I finished stitching my Christmas exchange. I thought I could 'finish' it, but the supplies I bought aren't big enough. I'll have to stop by the craft store this weekend and see if I can find something bigger or to use in my Sizzix machine :)

I hope your October crafting is going well!!!

Until next time >___<

Sunday Baking - Harvest Loaves

Hi, everyone! My aunt bought me an adorable fall themed bundt pan from Nordicware.

Yesterday, I tried the recipe for harvest loaves that was on the back of the wrapping. They turned out great. A hint of sweetness and a little rum flavoring.

I love how easy the pan was to use and clean. I thought I'd have trouble getting the bundts to come out, but I used Pam spray with flour so no problems there :)

I like the small batch that this pan makes. It is perfect for making a dessert for my family and my aunt's family! And oddly enough, it is perfect for work as well as I have six coworkers in my department :)

I think I might make another batch of these little cakes this weekend, but I will use muscovado sugar and forgo the rum. It should be interesting to see how it will taste.

Hope you are enjoying the fall by making yummy treats too!

Until next time >___<

October - Second week of stitching

Good evening, everyone! I hope you had a great weekend and a good start to the work week. Here is my post about my second week of stitching :)

On Sampler 4 Saisons, I was able to finish the second page of the middle section so now I'm down to two more patterns. I'll happy dance to that since the pattern has a total of 8 pages!!

This week I'll be on the bottom of the tree, sparse branches (compared to the amount in the rest of the tree), and falling leaves. I would love to finish this pattern by the end of the month, but we'll see how far I get.

On Sweet Christmas, I finished the second motif which was several cute little cakes and started the white border of the dome covered cake beside the strawberry cake. I should have taken a picture before I started today, but I already had my linen secured in a Q-snap and the linen's hard to iron after being in the Q-snap for a while ;)

Today I stitched a little bit on the inside of the dome. I thought I would get more done, but I got a strange case of the sneezes at work, which always makes me tired. Why do allergies make you tired? My sister joked that maybe it was because my head wasn't getting enough oxygen from my running nose. Thanks, sis. At least, I know I'm amusing to someone when I start sneezing all over the place!

I hope by Wednesday, I'll be able to start stitching for my Christmas exchange. I have a pattern picked out and over the weekend, I went and got the linen, threads, beads, and the finishing items I needed. I'm hoping that once I finish the pattern, it will work on the wood circles I got to finish the item! (fingers crossed!!!)

Until next time ^____^

October - First week of stitching

So my plan for October is cross stitching and I started on the 1st and have been rotating between Sampler 4 Saisons and Sweet Christmas. Here's my progress after one week! 

My stitching on the Sampler 4 Saisons is coming along quite nicely. It helps that it is a softer linen so that my tapestry needle goes through easily.

On the Sweet Christmas pattern, I have moved down below the strawberry cake motif and started working on the next motif which is a cute assortment of mini cakes.

It takes me more time to stitch on this linen despite it being the same count as the Sampler 4 Saisons linen due to the texture of the linen.

In other stitching news, I have joined Stephanie at bluestarstitcher and two other ladies in a Christmas cross stitch exchange. Hooked on Exchanging has been slack all year as I'm sure everyone is busy with crafting and life in general. I was so glad that Stephanie posted about doing an exchange.

I went by Barnes and Noble yesterday and found Just Cross Stitch's Christmas ornament issue (about time I found it)! I'll see if anything catches my eye for an exchange otherwise I'll pull out my old issues of various Christmas cross stitch magazines and 'browse' for ideas.

Until next time >___<

Autumn and Halloween Packages!

Good evening! I sent off my Halloween package to my friend Amanda quite early this year as I included some crafting items I thought she might like to use in her cardmaking, etc.

I found some adorable stamp/die cut sets at Michael's, glittery paper tape from Target and you know I had to throw in some sort of sweet so I sent some Butterfingers and Peeps. Of course, the chocolate melted in the CA heat, I have a feeling the Peeps probably made it through just fine....which is spooky!!

My homemade item for Amanda's package was a Halloween themed banner that I crocheted using a pattern I found on Red Heart's website. I finished crocheting all the pumpkins, etc. while watching the Olympics and finished adding the eyes, mouths and attaching everything together in September.

Amanda sent me a cute picture of the Halloween banner displayed on her staircase railing. Lol If I knew she was going to display it there, I would have made it longer :)

On Friday I received a mid-autumn festival package from Amanda. She sent me a signed copy of Imprudence by Gail Carriger, a cute kitty card, and a box full of goodies!!!

(drool O_o") Lots and lots of various red bean cakes and pineapple cakes, chocolate, and specialty Kit Kats!!! 

My favorite so far are the Harrod's tea flavored mooncakes that Amanda's aunt had gotten from the Harrod's location in Taiwan. They are flavored with earl grey tea! Absolutely delicious. For once I'm glad there are only two in my package because if I had more, I'd eat them all day.

The other favorite is the red bean with walnut mooncake (in the lower left of box). The pairing of red bean and walnut is yummy. And I love the crust on the pastry. It reminds me of Japanese red bean cakes which can have a pancake like texture :)

My sister and I tried the Shinshu Apple Kit kat (I want a bag of those!!!) and the other limited edition flavor, wasabi. Lol We didn't know it was wasabi, it tasted more like a pepper or grass than wasabi. 

As I know I can't eat all of these mooncakes by myself, I plan on taking them to work to share with the coworkers in my department. My coworker Jeff loves trying Oriental foods and sweets and is a willing guinea pig when I bring things in to try. You can't go wrong with sweets!!

Thanks for the fantastic box of goodies and the book (adding it to my collection)!!!

Until next time >___<

September Recap

Recap:

Read:
1. The Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn by Jonathan Cott
2. Unbeaten Tracks of Japan by Isabella L. Bird

Crafts:
1. Pikachu amigurumi
2. Bulbasaur amigurumi
3. Eevee amigurumi
4. Nine tail fox amigurumi
5. Squirtle amigurumi
6. Flareon amigurumi
7. Holiday crafting

Stitching:
1. Frogged Sampler 4 Saisons (boo!!!!)
2. Started Sweet Christmas by Cuore e Batticuore

Hi, everyone! I hope you had a great September. It seems like the year is flying by with October starting tomorrow.

I spent the month crocheting quite a bit on amigurumi for next year's convention and holiday gifts.

Reading was mostly spent in the world of 19th century America and Japan with Lafcadio Hearn and Isabella Bird.

I have had Isabella Bird's Unbeaten Tracks of Japan on my Kindle for quite a while and finally got around to reading it last week. She traveled from Yokohama to Yezo (what now is called Hokkaido), an area of Japan that wasn't well known at the time. Her observations on the Ainu people is quite interesting from a historical and anthropological standpoint.

On the stitching front, I had a frustrating time frogging my Sampler 4 Saisons pattern, but I made it and started to stitch over in the areas I had to frog. At least it taught me a valuable lesson: buy plenty of thread when you start a project because you never know if the dye lot will change.

Up side, I started Sweet Christmas by Cuore e Batticuore, which I am loving so far despite the coarse linen I am working on.

My goals for October are purely cross stitch related. I would like to spend the entire month on my stitching. No crochet, just cross stitch.

I should be getting the fabric and threads I ordered for the Potions pattern in the mail soon. I would like to add it to my rotation of cross stitch with Sampler 4 Saisons and Sweet Christmas.

It should be interesting to see how far I can get in my stitching with an entire month. Hmmm......off to consult a calender and figure out a rotation plan :)

Until next time >___<

P.S. The fall weather has finally made it to AL this morning with lows in the 50s/highs in the 80s. I hope it continues to progress into fall. It's my favorite time of year next to spring. I could really skip summer and winter altogether :)

Lafcadio Hearn - 112 years of captivation

Do you ever feel bereft after reading a book? You come to end and think, ‘Surely, there’s more, right? It can’t end here.’ For me, Lafcadio Hearn is one of those amazing authors who has the power to hold you captive until the end.  With each of Lafcadio Hearn’s books that I read, I am spellbound.

Born in 1850 to a Greek mother and Irish father, Patrick Lafcadio Hearn would continuously seek his place in the world throughout his life. He came to America in 1869 after he was shipped off from England by a distant cousin who did not want the responsibility of caring for Hearn, who was nineteen at the time.

Cincinnati, Ohio would be his home for nearly a decade. There he made a name for himself as a reporter for the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer with articles ranging from your normal literary critics and city news to lurid accounts of Victorian murders. Despite his fame as a reporter, he was fired from the Daily Enquirer newspaper due to his illegal marriage to an African American woman named Alethea "Mattie" Foley. She worked at the boarding house where he was staying at the time. Ever interested in learning about new people and cultures, Lafcadio would often frequent the kitchen where Mattie worked in order to hear her life stories. They were married in 1874. His marriage suffered by the actions of both Hearn and Mattie and despite trying to reconcile their differences, they ended up divorcing in 1877.  

Near the end of 1877, Lafcadio Hearn decided he needed a change of pace and moved to New Orleans. He worked various odd jobs trying to scrape together enough money before landing a job as a reporter again. After a decade in New Orleans, Lafcadio became once again disenchanted.

Luckily, he was given the opportunity to go the West Indies as a special correspondent for Harper’s Magazine. He would spend two years there, writing articles and publishing a book about life in that area. By the end of two years, realizing that he needed to make money and elevate his art, he left Martinique for New York.

Having always been fascinated by the Orient, Lafcadio pitched an idea of writing a travel book about Japan to Harper and Brothers. They agreed to publish a book, but gave him no contract or advance, but Lafcadio would not be deterred. He wrote several articles for Harper’s Magazine in order to finance his trip.

By March 8, 1890, Lafcadio had set off for a new adventure in Japan, in what he called ‘Fairyland’. He would spend the rest of his life in Japan. He married a Japanese woman, Setsu Koizumi, and had four children. He even became a Japanese citizen and changed his name to Yakumo Koizumi.

Years before in New Orleans, he had written to a friend, Henry Krehbiel that he felt out of place in the world. ‘I ought never to have been in this century, I think sometimes, because I live forever in dreams of other centuries and other faiths and other ethics, - dreams rudely broken by the sound of cursing in the street below.’

I think perhaps Lafcadio found his place in the world when he landed in Yokohama on April 12, 1890. A world where spirits, legends, and myths still roamed despite the advancements of modernity.

During his years in Japan, Lafcadio would write articles for various newspapers and publish several books on Japanese travel and life. He would become a teacher in the city of Matsue before moving with his increasing family to Tokyo. He was offered a job as an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo and as a lecturer for Tokyo and Waseda universities.

Lafcadio passed away on September 26, 1904 from heart failure. He left behind his wife and four children and his wife’s family. After his death, the influence of his books continued to captivate the western world. Friends within the literary world would publish books on his life and their interaction with him. Elizabeth Bisland’s The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn and Milton Bronner’s Letters from the Raven are two such examples.

112 years later, Hearn still manages to captivate his audience describing not only Japan, but America and the West Indies at the end of the nineteenth century.

From one fellow lover of Japan to another, thank you for keeping the world of old Japan alive and well and continuing to inspire us in the twentieth-first century.