Mirthful – Page 19 – enjoying it while it lasts

More pictures

July 25, 2009July 25, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

I finally got around to taking some pictures of the finished quilt – on the morning of the wedding… Here it is, bound and washed and lovely and crinkly.

It’s all done:

Binding:

Detail:

Front:

Back:

If you click through to a larger size of the front you should be able to see that four of the squares spell the names of the bride and groom and the wedding date in place of the “love”. Clever, eh? Even if I do say so myself. Considering this is only my second finished quilt, and my first on a large scale, I’m really thrilled at how it worked out.

I made it!

July 2, 2009July 2, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

I finished the quilt top and back Monday night, got it off express post haste Tuesday morning and now it’s on its way back to me. Merete Ellingsen of MA Quilterne – my new hero – did her part in the shortest possible time. Maude and Posten willing it will be back with me tomorrow, and then there’s only the binding left, and a week to do it in, which should be ample, even if I have decided to hand sew it (I did briefly consider machine sewing the binding, but it does look rather a lot nicer with invisible stitches, so since I have the time to hand sew I will).

I’m still somewhat disabled internet-connection-wise, so this picture is courtesy of Merete, a couple of detailed images (to let you see the beautiful quilting) are available in her Flickr album (btw, Merete also has a blog).

Work in progress

June 25, 2009July 2, 2009 Mirthful 2 Comments

I’m working with these:

Inspired by this.

And the results so far are promising.

Not quite the way I pictured it, but it’s working, and that’s a good thing because I don’t have time to change my mind. I need to finish the top and back – of a king size bedspread, no less – by Sunday, get it off to someone with a long-arm quilting machine by express post on Monday and hope I get it back in time to bind it before a momentous event on the 11th.

Leaving things to the last minute? Me? Never!

Edit: Well, I didn’t quite make it. The main part of the top is finished, but needs a border and the back needs a couple of more seams before it’s done. Going to be busy tonight… Hopefully I’ll still get it back in time to bind it.

When you don’t know whether to laugh or cry

June 16, 2009June 16, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

… you might as well laugh.

I’ve been doing a lot of laughing, in an exasperated sort of way, over the last few days. See, this woman called Hanne N. Herland has been figuring in the Norwegian media for stating the – uhm – unusual* opinion than women should be good little wives and please their husband sexually and gastronimically and be happy about it (oh, and don’t forget to freshen up your makeup before he arrives home from work and greet him with a smile). She also said that it’s no wonder Norwegian men marry Russian or Thai ladies because at least these ladies like sex and can cook. Apparently. Also, Norwegian ladies are all hedonist and jump into bed with just anyone, especially their friends’ husbands. Why they would chose to do so if they don’t like sex hasn’t been explained yet, I’ll get back to you on that one.

So I chose to laugh.

Then some other ladies chimed in to say that really, all this equality-talk has gone too far and how it’s a shame that young women nowadays have to work full-time AND take care of the house and children.

Let me tell you something, ladies: That ain’t equality. The idea, you see, is that your husband should do his share of taking care of the house and the children. I know, revolutionary, isn’t it?

Anyway. I laughed some more.

And then, this afternoon, Herland participated in a net-meeting, and got the following question:

Du har skjønt det!

Oddvar Solemsli,

16.06.2009 13:29:51

Ja dette var skikkelig valgflesk for oss hjerneløse menn – mat og sex! Kunne ikke blitt bedre. Mitt spørsmål er: Hvordan har du tenkt å komme deg tilbake til førkrigstida der du åpenbart kommer fra når valget en gang er over?

And Herland offered this gem:

Hilsen Hanne Nabintu Herland svarer:

Jeg mener faktisk at det er enkelte ting ved 1950 tallet som er bra! Man kan da ikke mene at absolutt alt var verre før, og absolutt alt er fantastisk nå?

Which is when I stopped reading.

(To enlighten those of you who don’t read Norwegian, the question asks sarcastically how she intends to get back to pre-war times where she obviously belongs. She answers that she thinks there are a lot of good things to be said for the 1950-ies.)

Now Herland, I realise there have been wars since 1959, but generally, when one refers to pre-war in Norway, one is talking about the 30ies, as WW2 is THE war hereabouts. Not that there isn’t a lot to be said for the 3oies, too. But as far as being a woman goes, I for one am grateful I was not around then.

All pretty amusing, anyway.

This, however, this just makes me cry:

A 63 year old man has been sentenced to five months in jail for sexually abusing an eight year old girl. However, the court did not accept the girl’s claim for compensation, and has instead ruled that the girl must pay the abuser’s legal fees.

In what possible light can this be seen as “justice”?

______________
* Which is not unusual at all, of course, and I can’t quite understand why the papers can be bothered to give her any attention.

Refashion

June 4, 2009June 4, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

I love this long-sleeved tee, but it’s too short for me, so I thought I’d try the adult-arms-to-toddler-legs method, and I made a tee from the body to complete the set. I tried to utilise the existing hems whereever possible. I think this is going to be great for hot summer days – whenever they return. Temperatures plunged this week, so it feels like early March again right now.

Adult tee disarmed:

Toddler set:

Another top I loved was too short as well. In fact, most tops are too short on me, I’ve got a dispropornately long torso. This one has a lovely deep blue hue that is really flattering on me, so I was loath to discard it. I had another top in the same sort of material in a greyish hue with a flower print, which was also, you guessed it, too short. I cut a band from the bottom of that and inserted it into the other, and, hey presto, useable top:

Detail showing the pattern on the insert:

Attempt at capturing the blue hue. Excuse the dust:

Male is default

May 9, 2009May 9, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

Male is the default; female is exceptional.

Case in point:

The lass has pink clothes. Probably more than I would ideally have chosen, in fact, because I’m not that fond of pink myself. However, most of her clothes are colours that I consider gender neutral (but then, to me, gender neutral is pretty much everything except pink and baby blue), or at least not pink-on-pink, but say, pink and brown, pink and grey and so on. Hence – which follows from the above theory – she is continually taken for a boy. Today she wore

jeans (very “girly” pattern in silver on the back pockets, but quite plain otherwise)
red and silver trainers
long-sleeved t-shirt in yellow, green and red

Both the IKEA employee who was running a “fairground” where the kids got to throw tiny softies at a target for the chance to win a big softie (for free, everyone got a prize, did I mention I love IKEA?) and a mother with a daughter (ok, now I’m doing the assuming, but the kid wore all pink from head to toe) a little younger than the lass automatically referred to her as “he” and “the boy”.

Why? Why when everyone knows about half the kids you meet are going to be female is “male” still default unless you shout your gender from the rooftops by wearing pink-pinkety-pink? What the f*** are we teaching these kids? When did this start applying to toddlers and not just babies (come to think of it, when did it start applying to babies)? I’m the daughter of a feminist, and wore practically no pink as a child, did everyone assume I was a boy, or were they more practically minded in the 70ies?

Disclaimer: I don’t “mind” the lass being taken for a boy, as such. It doesn’t matter on a personal, individual level, I’m just worried about what it says about our society’s expectations for girls (and boys).

The irony? I haven’t been extremely opposed to pink so far. I have even purchased a few pink-and-princessy garments for her myself. But because I am now continually made aware of how much “people” read into the pink/not-pink choice, I am getting to the stage where I might just ban pink from the house. Just when the lass is getting to an age where she might actually start caring.

Mind you. Perhaps that is just the point in time where it is important to start introducing rules and not just go with the flow?

So-called romantic so-called comedies

May 8, 2009May 8, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

It’s been a while. Granted, I don’t watch many movies at all these days, other things seem to take up my time, but in response to Dorothy Snarker’s excellent Dear John letter to romantic comedies I’m trying to remember the last time I paid to see one. I saw Down with Love on television just a few weeks ago (oh, and boy, did that suck or what? I really don’t know why I sat through the whole thing, I think I must be allowed to plead insanity), which would make it the first romantic comedy I’ve seen at all in a very long time, but how long has it actually been since I paid to see one?

I think it might have been Bridget Jones’ Diary. The first one.

In which I read letters

May 6, 2009May 6, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

…and wonder whether I should write some. I ought to know better, actually, than to read the letters page in the newspaper. Especially letters signed somebody whose name I really can’t be arsed to remember, Kristent samlingsparti (or whatever it is they call themselves, and no, I will not google them, I do not want to contribute to their hit count). It left me feeling exasperated and a little tempted to go on a rampage of sorts.

Ok, ok, I get it. Some people are against the new marriage equality law.But I need some explanation, nevertheless.

So you’ve read the bible and found that it says that teh gays they are teh evilz (though, you know, I read it too, and I never found that part), and therefore they need to be saved from having happy fulfilling lives and be “cured” into miserableness and probably forced to marry someone of the opposite sex and procreate, because that-thing-you-call-god-which-bears-little-resemblance-to-my-God apparently thinks the world is underpopulated.

That’s fine.

Ok, it isn’t fine, but I can sort of see your point if I tilt my head and squint a bit. You’re entitled to your opinion, even if I fundamentally disagree.

But how, how, HOW can you describe Bill and Ted down the street finally getting the legal recognition of their loving and faithful relationship over the last 20 years as an “attack on those of us who want a normal marriage”? No one’s talking about YOUR marriage. No one CARES about your marriage. You’re married? Fine. Good for you. If your marriage is so frail a thing that the fact of someone completely unrelated to you getting legal recognition of a relationship YOU wouldn’t want to be in then, you know, perhaps it’s how YOU handle your own relationship you should be worried about and talk about and do something with.

See, I’m not gay. The person I fell head over heels in love with and who happened to fall in love with me and whom I married a while back and hope to God (mine, not yours) I will stay married to until death do us part (and oh, let that be in a good many years) is of the opposite sex. And I hold our marriage sacred. But it matters to me NOT ONE JOT that Bill and Ted get married and live happily ever after too. In fact, it makes me rather happier, in that the more people in this world who are happy, the less people are likely to go on murderous rampages (or to write moronic letters to the editor, because, have you noticed, really happy people don’t feel the need to put other people down). It makes our marriage no less valid, no less valuable. Neither does Jane and Ben getting a divorce or the fact that Joe beats Diane senseless every Friday, though the former makes me kind of sad and the latter hopping mad. But it doesn’t affect OUR marriage.

You know, you probably heard this before, but it seems to bear repeating: Go get your bible and read the bit about loving thy neighbour as thyself and doing unto others etc. again. It’s in the New Testament. You know, that bit of the bible you’re supposed to hold especially dear if you’re a Christian.

I meant to forget all about that stupid letter and not write all that, but then Faith posted this at Shakesville and I really needed to post it too, and the other bit sort of just happened. Video emphatically not safe for work (well, the sound isn’t, and you really need the sound on):

New from old

May 6, 2009May 6, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

Spring has sprung and the lass needs some lightweight hats. I dug through the pile of “want to use this for something” and found one of my favourite t-shirts ever. I absolutely adore this material. However, the top has always been too short for me, and repeated spin cycles have not helped.

So. I cut off the bottom part to make a simple hat, here is the rest of the tee (I forgot the “before” picture):

I made a tube out of several rectangles, folded it double and closed the end where the cut sides were with a seam – making a “peak” or ear-shape at each end. Voilla, new floppy-silly hat:

Now what?

April 22, 2009April 22, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

This is turning into a series, it seems, but, you know: WTF? Why is this one without a head, then? The more I look at this image the more disturbing I find it.

Sorry for the crummy picture, I’ll get a better one if I see the poster again.

The main tagline reads “when your body gets tied up in knots” – and it’s an advertisement for a naprapat center (I think, the print was so small, I really coudn’t read anything beyond the main “slogan” from where I sat, which, frankly, fails it as effective advertising, too…).