Greenpeace Day September 15, 2017

DIANE'S CORNER ... Celebrate Greenpeace Day

On 15^th September we celebrate Greenpeace Day, so this is the time to release your inner activist and get passionate about the environment. The now internationally renowned campaign organization for ecological issues was originally founded by a group of 17 activists in Vancouver protesting against off shore nuclear testing in Alaska on this date in 1971.

Since then, Greenpeace has achieved an abundance of victories over eco-crimes, as well as making an enormous contribution to raising awareness of environmental issues across the globe. They constantly strive for their vision of a society which recognizes the Earth as an essential life support system whose resources are not infinite and must be protected and cared for. Their campaigns range from raising awareness of the receding ice of the Arctic to protecting the oceans and rainforests to working towards nuclear disarmament.

To recognize the contribution made by the organisation which came out of such humble roots yet now boasts 2.9 million members, Mayor Gregor Robertson of Vancouver has pronounced September 15^th Greenpeace Day. In Vancouver, celebrations include a free family-friendly outdoor festival, tree planting and workshops on activism.

Be inspired by Greenpeace today: sign petitions and encourage others to do the same, be green in the home and out and about by switching off unnecessary light bulbs and throwing that empty wrapper on the street in the bin. Think bigger and look into volunteering and helping raise awareness for Greenpeace issues. Finally let Greenpeace Day act as a reminder that as the anthropologist Margaret Mead once put it: ‘Never doubt that a … group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has’.

thanks, Cher

Tommy Cooper (one of Britain's greatest comedians)

Word of the Day

ostensible
Definition:	(adjective) Appearing as such but not necessarily so.
Synonyms:	seeming, apparent
Usage:	The ostensible reason of his appearance was the discovery, the very night before, of a "perfect little house."

Two blondes walk into a building .........you'd think at least one of them would have seen it.

Idiom of the Day

in leaps and bounds  — By very large degrees; rapidly or in quick progress forward.

History

Nuremberg Laws Deprive German Jews of Citizenship and Civil Rights (1935)

Enacted in the early years of Adolf Hitler's rule, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of German citizenship, prohibited them from marrying non-Jews, and forbade them to hire non-Jewish domestic servants. Supplementary decrees laid down the criteria for determining exactly who was legally Jewish. Punishments for violating the laws included fines, hard labor, and even death. 

William Howard Taft (1857)

An extremely large, easygoing man, Taft was said to have not really wanted to be US president. In 1908, he was elected anyway, having already served as solicitor general, appellate judge, secretary of war, and governor of the Philippines. His split with former president Theodore Roosevelt, who consequently ran for office again, cost them both the 1912 election. Taft later served as chief justice of the Supreme Court. 

Saturn Unveiled: How Cassini Revealed the Ringed Planet

After 14 years of exploration, the Cassini spacecraft is preparing to write its final chapter on the Saturn system. No other spacecraft in history has come to know a single planetary system as intimately as Cassini knows Saturn.
READ MORE:

Rings Revealed: How Cassini's Saturn Odyssey Exceeds Expectations


1775 - An early and unofficial American flag was raised by Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Mott after the seizing of Fort Johnson from the British. The flag was dark blue with the white word "Liberty" spelled on it. 


1853 - Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell was ordained becoming first female minister in the United States. 


1883 - The University of Texas at Austin opened. 


1903 - Country singer Roy Acuff was born. He was the first living artist to be elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame. 


1909 - Charles F. Kettering applied for a patent on his ignition system. His company Delco (Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company) later became a subsidiary of General Motors.


1928 - Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic penicillin in the mold Penicillium notatum. 


1930 - Hoagy Carmichael recorded "Georgia on My Mind." The song has been the official state song of Georgiasince 1922. 


1949 - "The Lone Ranger" premiered on ABC. Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels was Tonto. 


1955 - Betty Robbins became the first woman cantor. 


1978 - Muhammad Ali defeated Leon Spinks to win his 3rd World Heavyweight Boxing title. 


1982 - The first issue of "USA Today" was published.


1997 - The domain name "google.com" was registered. 


2003 - In Independence, MO, the birthplace of Ginger Rogers was designated a local landmark. The move by the Independence City Council qualified the home for historic preservation. 

DAILY SQU-EEK

If You Were Born Today, September 15

Artistic talent is strong with this birthday. As grounded as you are, every now and again you face deep changes that force you to let go and then reinvent yourself. Your experiences in life bring greater awareness and heightened intuition. You have strong sex appeal and are highly attracted to romantic relationships. People are drawn to you for advice, help, and comfort. Your intuition is well-developed, and so is your imagination, which seems to know no bounds. You’re a bit of a maverick. Although sensitive, you are not afraid to do your own thing. Famous people born today: Chelsea Staub, William Howard Taft, Agatha Christie, Tom Hardy, Tommy Lee Jones, Oliver Stone.

READERS INFO
1.

Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival 2017

Sep 1 - Oct 7, 2017 | Lisdoonvarna, Ireland 

This quirky local festival reinforces the phrase the “luck of the Irish.” How often does a single person go to a festival privately hoping they might be lucky enough to meet their soulmate? Well, here’s a festival primarily dedicated to that intention. But, before you imagine it’s just an evening of speed dating, read this review and you’ll see that there’s magic in the air and more than matchmaking going on in this tiny community of 1,000 County Clare farmers.

further information: Matchmaking Festival | Lisdoonvarna | Co. Clare | Ireland

2.

Laguna Dance Festival 2017

Sep 7-17, 2017 | Laguna Beach, CA

The Laguna Playhouse|606 Laguna Canyon Road

The Laguna Dance Festival blends concert dance with non-traditional venues to create a unique, up-and-close feeling for fans of the art form. By transforming art galleries and site-specific outdoor venues into dance stages, the festival’s audiences can experience top-quality dance performance in ways that challenge the traditional portrayal of the genre. Since its inception, the festival has collaborated with such respected companies as Complexions Contemporary Ballet, The Parsons Dance Company, New York City Ballet, The San Francisco Ballet and many others.

further information: Home

3.

Jesse James Festival 2017

Sep 8-17, 2017 | Kearney, MO

Jesse James Park|3001 N Hwy 33

Held in Kearney, Missouri, the Jesse James Festival celebrates the history and legacy of the famous outlaw, Jesse James. As the birth and resting place of Jesse James, Kearney provides the ideal location for an event of this nature. To acknowledge the career of the famous bank and train robber, the festival invites guests to enjoy such events as craft fair, classic carnival, 5k run/walk, rodeo, parade and demolition derby.

further information: Schedule | JesseJamesFestival.com



Pictures of the day


A bird's eye view of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a 1902 lithograph by Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler. At this point in its history, Pittsburgh was an industrial and commercial powerhouse, with extensive railroad connections to the rest of the United States. Together with the rest of Allegheny County, it produced massive amounts of steel and steel products: by 1911 they reached 24% of the national output of pig iron, 34% of Bessemer steel, 44% of open hearth steel, 53% of crucible steel, 24% of steel rail, and 59% of structural shape.

CAN YOU HEAR THE MUSIC?

This image of a child on the carousel with the motion blur and light steaks emphasizing the ride.

knit
thanks, Sally

Cuff of the Mountain pattern by Georgie Nicolson

knit
thanks, Ivy

Acorn tawashi pattern by Marte Fagervik

knit, login

Top Stitch Sweater

knit

Knitty: Summer 2006

knit

Simple Poncho with Lacey Stripes pattern by Stefee Knudsen

A man came round in hospital after a serious accident.

He shouted, 'Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!'
The doctor replied, 'I know you can't, I've cut your arms off'.

crochet
thanks, Ann

Upcycled Sunflowers

crochet
thanks, Marge

Autumn Doily Tutorial

crochet

Muskoka Cabin Baby Blanket pattern by Cyndy Regeling

crochet

Crochet Race Car "Playnket" (Play Mat and Blanket)

crochet
DRAFT CATCHER

http://com.yarnspirations.pattern-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/Bernat_SuperValueweb1_cr_draftdodger.en_US.pdf

RECIPE

thanks, Shelley

Vegetarian Skillet Chili Recipe

CROCKPOT RECIPE
thanks, Helen

Slow Cooker Italian Chicken Sandwiches

SWEETS

Chewy Maple Cinnamon Cookies

Man goes to the doctor, with a strawberry growing out of his head.
Doc says 'I'll give you some cream to put on it.'

ADULT COLORING

CRAFTS
thanks, Patty

Magical Landscape Silhouette Painted Rocks for a Rock Hunt - Adventure in a Box

A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet. 'My dog is cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?' 

'Well,' said the vet, 'let's have a look at him' So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then he checks his teeth. Finally, he says, 'I'm going to have to put him down.'

'What? Because he's cross-eyed?' 'No, because he's really heavy'

CHILDREN'S CORNER ... recipe
thanks, Judith
JOLLY RANCHER SUCKER

AGIRLANDAGLUEGUN

these are easy. not messy. yummy

i bought this bag of jolly ranchers at walmart for like 2.88.

and the sucker sticks are at walmart and joanns for pretty cheap…

pick out 3 jolly ranchers and you place them right by each other….on tinfoil..then parchment paper (i used freezer paper and it worked great)

DON’T USE WAX PAPER!

they take 5-7 minutes at 275 degrees.

pull out and put sticks in immediately (roll them to get the candy over them so they don’t fall out)

they cool pretty darn fast too!

PUZZLE

Scilla Hughii Gray Jigsaw Puzzle



WORD SEARCH

abate amaze aware blind bunt chair check choke

clear crag crash eager everything fault feel

gaudy guest guns hedge hitch house huge hurdle hurry

integer intelligent lent local meant night noisy option outworn

reward screen snack tough trot unruly willful

SUDOKU ... medium




solution:

QUOTE

Two fat blokes in a pub, one says to the other 'Your round.'

The other one says 'So are you, you fat b!'

CLEVER




EYE OPENER

By Julie Theaker, Knitty

The history of knitting is mostly a big mystery, guessed at from fragments kept in museums around the world. Knitting is made of wool, silk, and other fibers that decay rapidly, even under perfect conditions; knitting needles are essentially sharpened sticks, and hard to identify as knitting needles beyond a doubt; they could be hair picks, skewers, spindles, or any of the other zillion uses there are for a sharpened stick. In the past, when spinning was all by hand and much more time-consuming, many sweaters that didn't fit were raveled and re-knit. Yarn wasn't discarded until it wore out. Add in that not many people in the past thought to save their everyday items for their descendants, and there aren't many useful knitted objects left for us to find, all these years later. Once in a while we get lucky. The archaeological evidence we have is very interesting, and there are other ways to date things. Linguistically, all evidence implies that knitting is a fairly recent invention. There are no ancient legends of knitting like there are legends of spinning and weaving (remember Arachne? Ixzaluoh? Nephthys? Amaterasu? Never mind... the numbers of weaving and spinning gods and mostly goddesses are legion). There are no ancient gods or goddesses who knit, no legend of how it was invented or given by the gods. That lack implies that it is a recent skill, developed after mythologies were established around the world. It's a shame, because I think a knitting goddess would be cool... maybe we could make one up? A quick cruise of the Oxford Unabridged English Dictionary also reveals that the term 'to knit' wasn't added to English until the 1400s. Further poking around will reveal that any term meaning 'to knit', specifically make loops with two long, straight needles, wasn't in any European language before the Renaissance. Other than the Middle East, and Spain, other places in the world were even later in their assigning words for knitting. It's pretty obvious; knitting hasn't been around that long. Most of what we're left with in terms of physical evidence is a tiny pile of knitted fragments, and a lot of speculation. And did I mention the knit fragments are really hard to interpret? Before the development of knitting, a craft called nalbinding was used to make stretchy fabrics. (Go here for a quickie lesson on how nalbinding is done. The drawbacks are obvious immediately.) Termed 'one needle knitting' by some museums, it is similar to knitting in structure, but stronger, less stretchy, and a lot more difficult to create. The resulting fabric would look very sloppy unless done by a master, and it wasn't something you could have the kids do while tending the sheep -- unlike knitting. These socks date to the 300s, and are made by nalbinding. They look very much like crossed-stitch or twisted-stitch knitting. As a fine example of the nalbinding/knitting confusion, the famous (notorious?) Dura-Europos fragment is considered by many to be the oldest fragment of knitting in existence. Found in the Indus River Valley and dating back several thousand years, it is listed in many books and the original dig report as knitting (I sincerely wonder if they HAD a knitter on the original dig.) Barbara Walker has even written a pattern so we can all knit something historical. Unfortunately, the Dura-Europos fragment has been proven to be made of nalbinding. Still, the knit version would make a cool pair of socks. Image from "A History of Hand Knitting" by Richard Rutt, p 30.  Fragment currently at Yale University. The oldest REAL knitting (formed on two sticks by pulling loops through loops) we've got is 'Coptic socks' from Egypt, dating to around the year 1000 CE. There are quite a few fragments, all of them done in shades of white and indigo, in stockinette. Many of them have Khufic (a decorative Arabic script) blessings knit into them, or symbols to ward off evil, or both. All look really cool. And may I point out for the fiber-snobs among us, that all of the really ancient knitted fragments we've got are knit out of cotton. Yes indeedy, cotton. Wool wasn't used for knitting until way later. Here are some of the earliest sock fragments we've found. You can see the patterns are already quite complex. These socks bring me (and more importantly real, trained archaeologists) to a conclusion; knitting's probably a little older than we think, because the first fragments we've got are good-looking, well-made, complex designs. To put it another way, would YOU do stranded-color socks as your first project, particularly if you were making it up as you went and had no one to teach you? With that in mind, given our thousand-year-old fragments, knitting might be eleven hundred, twelve hundred years old, allowing for a lifetime or two for people to invent the methods and then get fancy with them. It pains my history-obsessed heart to admit it, but knitting's a recent invention (put against the backdrop of all of human history, anyway). Among some historians (I won't name names), there seems to be a lot of, um, denial going on about where knitting was developed. There is a fairly obvious trail of artifacts from Egypt to Moorish-occupied Spain, and up into the rest of Europe. Some rather Eurocentric types claim this isn't evidence enough to 'prove' that knitting was invented in the Middle East, so I'll pile on a few more points in favor of a Middle-Eastern invention of knitting. Keep in mind we're discussing the Middle Ages. The first date-able hunk of knitting found in Europe is from Spain (the Spain that was, at the time, held by Arabic peoples), in a tomb that was sealed up in 1275, slap in the middle of the darkest of the Dark Ages. And YET, all of the early knitting fragments have writing knit into them. Many of the sock fragments have 'Allah' knit in bands around them, assumed to function as a blessing. The pillow in Spain has 'blessing' in a decorative Arabic script knit around the edges. We can pretty safely assume that knitting words into knitting was done almost from the first, at a time Europe was largely illiterate. It was the Islamic world that had wide-spread literacy. No one's gonna convince me that an illiterate was the one who came up with the idea to knit words into a sock. So, the early knitting fragments were produced by someone literate, and most literate people were found somewhere in the Islamic world. Particularly literate people with a knowledge of decorative Arabic scripts. Added to that, for the first four or five hundred years of knitting's history, the most common materials were cotton and silk. Not wool. Cotton and silk were far easier to come by in the Middle East than in Europe. If knitting had started in Europe, I imagine they'd have used wool first. Or maybe linen. My final proof is how we knit. Ever notice we work the stitches from right to left? Ever wonder why? We write left to right... doesn't it follow that we would KNIT left to right? Only if we invented it in the first place. Arabic is written from right to left. I'm betting that our current knitting method is a holdover from that. (We knit right to left today because some Arabic person started doing it that way over a thousand years ago. History is so cool.) So what do we know? Knitting kind of appeared, poof, probably in Egypt or an adjoining land, sometime around 1000CE and spread rapidly, moving along trade routes into Europe. Another theory holds that knitting was brought back to Europe during the Crusades (1095-1291), but I can't imagine the Crusaders taking time off from raping and pillaging to share sock-making techniques in the Middle East. Call me a cynic. I can't imagine a bunch of Arabs taking a break from being attacked to teach some stinky Europeans how to knit, either. From the 1275 pillow found in Spain, things fan out in terms of direction, and speed up. There are 'clumsily made' gloves from France dating to the 1200s (someone teaching themselves to knit, having seen a trade good?) Then liturgical gloves in a German tomb, dated to 1297, similar to the ones found in the Victoria and Albert Museum: At this stage, knitting was still a luxury trade item; it was created from imported silks and cottons, and made into non-vital things like pillows, liturgical gloves, and small bags. In the 1350s, paintings called 'knitting madonnas' began to appear. They depict the Virgin Mary knitting; the paintings are detailed enough to show that SOMEONE in Europe knew how to knit. The painting thought to be the earliest of them is found in Northern Italy (not far from Spain, especially if you think in terms of trade routes). Another knitting Madonna was painted in Germany around 1400. The knowledge of how to knit was starting to spread, quickly. In the mid-1500s, the first and only major new technique was introduced to knitting: the purl stitch. First found on a pair of stockings in a tomb in Toledo, Spain, dated to 1562. Up until then, all those socks had curly edges. Can you imagine? By the 1500s, most of the wealthy in Europe had at least one pair of knit socks (these were the days of shortie trunk hose and loooong socks for men, remember), and possibly a knit undershirt or jacket. In 1566, King Eric of Sweden had a garment inventory done; he owned twenty-seven pairs of silk stockings imported from Spain, each pair costing the same as his valet's ANNUAL salary (What a clothes horse! He's lucky he didn't have taxpayers to answer to). The gauge on these stockings was completely insane; Nancy Bush says the gauge of one pair is 25 stitches and 32 rows PER INCH. Yes, INCH. This was before the invention of knitting frames or anything else in terms of automation; these babies were knit by hand. (For the sake of the knitters, I hope they were done in direct sunlight, but I'm betting not. Poor things.) Knitted jackets and shirts were also popular at this time, usually knit from silk and gilt threads. (Gilt yarn at the time was made from actual metal. Can you imagine how fun THAT was to knit with? It probably tarnished and looked like crap within the year, too.) Looking at this jacket, you can see that they were still following woven ideals for fit and cut. The undershirts are very much like woven undershirts of the day, something like a modern Henley, with a longer, flaring shirt tail. Charles the I of England was said to be wearing one of these undershirts when he was beheaded in 1649. (Sky blue silk at a gauge of 8.5 stitches per cm, or about 17 stitches PER INCH.) Knitting was still pretty exclusive, but not for long. Economics reared its ugly head, in the form of supply and demand. Demand being insanely high, cottage industries began to appear; a hat-knitting guild appeared in England in 1424, along with many others across Europe. Once the common man knew how to knit, the obvious happened. We started knitting for ourselves. One of the first of the commonly available knitted products was the 'acorn hat', made of felted wool. This one dates to the 1600s. That's right, it took us about five hundred years to make common 'everyday' knitting out of wool. After this, the history is pretty predictable; the knowledge of knitting spread around the world, following trade routes. Sailors were big fans of knitting, since it was small, portable, and gave them something to do on long voyages. Back in Europe, the peasants gradually began adding knitting to their folk costumes, giving us all those lovely ethnic sweaters we (okay, I) love to knit. Over the years, the role of knitting has shifted regularly, from high-demand luxury item to low-demand folk craft, and back again. In the Victorian era, knitting became a parlor art, used to make all sorts of exquisitely fine laces, bags, and baby clothes. They seem to be the ones who introduced fine beadwork to knitting, stringing tiny beads onto sewing thread and knitting it into fabric. The next revolution in knitting was the idea of knitwear as sportswear, coming from two places at once -- British royalty and the Paris designers. The Prince of Wales began wearing Fair Isle sweaters to golf in (the one below is similar to his, but no one knows where the original is, if it still exists). Then Elsa Schiaparelli mass-produced her 'bow knot' sweater, the crowds went wild, and the rest is history. (Thankfully. I'd hate having to wear wovens all the time.) In the 1930s, the depression hit, and around the world, several co-ops were set up to help women earn money by knitting. The (deservedly) most famous of these was Bohus Stickning, founded in Sweden by Emma Jacobsson. The sweaters are still known among hard-core knitters like myself, as amazing examples of color and design, proof that with care and attention, any craft can be made into art. Below is a photo of one of their most popular designs, the "Blue Shimmer". [ Blue shimmer photo from the Bohuslans Museum. The thing that made knitting so immediately popular when it was invented, is what makes it popular even today: it's simplicity. With two sticks and some string, you can create literally any article of clothing (And not only is that simple, it's pretty darn cool). We occasionally add a new technique, but for the most part knitting is unchanged from twelve hundred years ago, when some poor nalbinder dumped their needle and said 'there has to be a better way'. Knitwear is as popular as ever, if not more so; people learn to knit daily, and classes are booming. Scientists have begun knitting nylon arteries to transplant into bodies, and metallic shields for hoses. It will be interesting to see what knitting will do next. PATTERN FOR MAKING THIS HISTORIC SOCK Dar Anahita: Medieval Egyptian Knitting 2 - Sock from the Textile Museum