More updates on the March.

I am so proud of us! I am so proud of how many Americans demonstrated on Saturday. But even more - I am humbled and honored that so many people around the world demonstrated with us in solidarity.Thank you all.

If you have not seen this compilation from the New York Times, take your time, scroll all the way through, it is worth it.  Demonstrations on all seven continents! Unprecedented.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/21/world/womens-march-pictures.html?_r=0

Too many fabulous photos to choose from so I just borrowed the one taken in Philadelphia. Thanks to Ann for sending the link.

But our work is far from done. It's time to roll up our sleeves and start working. I'm participating in the Women's March 10 actions in 100 days. Step one, write to my Senator. Toomey and Casey - you are both going to hear from me!

I am feeling so much better today.

I was looking forward to attending the Women's March in Philadelphia. I didn't want to travel to Washington DC but I did want to participate here.

In the weeks prior to the march I was furiously knitting Pussy Hats. I didn't find out about this project until my Stitch & Bitch club met at the end of the first week of January. And even then I wasn't convinced I wanted one.

So I knitted one in brown to see what I thought about it - and it was cute and easy and fun to knit. I decided I should knit some more but in the official project color, pink. When I went to AC Moore last weekend, boy, the pickin's was slim. I agonized over color choice for a while and finally settled on a soft bright pink and a variegated one.

I had a list of people to knit for and I still didn't finish as many as I wanted.

One each for Miss Mary and me,

 Three for my sister and friends.

 And while I worked Swee'Pea kept guard on the finished ones.

On Friday I woke up and decided I did not need to listen to a shred of news. I'm so glad I didn't.

I had errands to run and as I was about to leave the house I realized I wanted to start protesting that day. Why should I wait until Saturday to wear my hat? I put it on.

As I left the gate a young woman, maybe 20ish, peeked out from under her umbrella at me with a big grin. I stopped at school to take care of some things and as I was getting out of my car, I was honked at. Thoroughly annoyed, I looked up to see two women in a black SUV waving and giving me the thumbs up! I waved back. Later at Home Depot, a woman in her 60s walked past me and as just as she left my peripheral vision said, "Nice hat." I turned around and thanked her and we both smiled.



Saturday Miss Mary and I headed over to the rally at Eakins Oval in front of the Art Museum. I must say, Philadelphia has a beautiful venue for such events. The international flags along the parkway are gorgeous. It was wonderful to be with so many like minded people. There was a feeling of happiness that I haven't felt in a long time. I think it was that so many of us came together and that there is power in numbers and that we all realized there are a lot of us who feel the same way. People were out there for a lot of different reasons. My favorite performing group were the Granny Peace Brigade who lead us in song. It wasn't one of the largest marches I've been to but I think that is because we are so close to Washington and I know a lot of people who took buses to march there. There were still 50,000 who showed up here on a cold and foggy Saturday morning.

In the evening, when my sister texted me photos of them in their hats, She said that the Los Angeles march had 750,000 people. I was stunned! That is more that in Washington DC! I looked up the information and saw that they had to march down side streets because there were too many people. I started looking at more information and saw that there were marches all around the world.

And so yes, I am feeling better today than I have in several months. I'm still very concerned. While we have strength in numbers, it is an extremely fragile balance.

But I have a Pussy Hat and I'm going to wear it.

Vacation Week

I took an extra week off to ostensibly "get so much done". 

Well....

While I did a lot - I didn't actually get much done. I chipped away at my list and got to about half of things I wanted to get to. 

 

First was making a huge dent in getting these mittens finished. I've been wanting to make them for more than two years. But with projects for other people and other things needing to be finished first - they had to wait. I started one before heading to California but didn't finish it until I got back here. I had to knit the top several times. And then the cuff was knitted afterward and I didn't have the pink yarn with me. I thought I 'd wanted an orange yarn I had - but it wasn't right. This took some serious doing to get the color variation the way I wanted it. In the end, it was worth all the extra effort and re-dos.  The second mitten is going much smoother but is still quite a project. I'm working on the cuff now and hope to finish them this week. Can't wait to wear them!

The second priority was to make sure the Silhouette cutter was working and it is!!!

 

I've cut a few things out and am excited to plan some new projects. In case you aren't familiar with these, they are just like printers, except that instead of printing on the paper, it cuts out shapes you have set up in the software that comes with the machine. You can cut paper, vinyl, stickers, and ??? I'm looking forward to finding out.  

I did get to one of the essential projects on my list: fixing the love seat! Remember this crazy project?

Well, I didn't put enough webbing on the bottom and pretty quickly it all popped off. The sofa was really saggy and becoming quite uncomfortable to sit in.

You can see in the above image how much the black part is sagging or popping out.
Last time, I did the whole thing by hand, from pulling out all the old nails and staples, to putting it all back on with a regular old staple gun. This time I got smart. I went to the trusty West Philly Tool Library and checked out an air compressor and staple gun. 

Holy Moly did that make a difference! You just squeeze the trigger and BAMphfft. Staple in. The only thing is the noise. The generator is loud loud loud! But some little ear plugs help.

I wasn't taking any chances this time, the base is plastered completely with webbing. And it's not coming off this either. Ever. Right now I am thrilled. Talk to me when I try to reupholster this sucker again. Then I won't be so happy.

But for the moment the base is flat like it should be and it feels much more comfy.  

Today was Stitch & Bitch our monthly knitting and political discussion group. I really look forward to it. We always bring something to eat and it has sort of become my job to bring the sweetie. Well fine by me. I tried one of the "Cocoanut Pudding" recipes in Ellen Emlen's cookbook. It's really more like a giant macaroon in a pie crust than a pudding but maybe I'm doing something wrong. Tasted just fine though.




Cream 1 cup (two sticks) butter with 1 cup sugar. Add 2T cognac 1t. rosewater and 2T coconut milk beat smooth. 
beat 8 egg whites to a snow, (and here's where I think I went wrong) add 3 cups unsweetened coconut.
combine the two mixtures. I think I should have added the coconut to the butter mixture and then folded the egg snow into that mixture.
Put it into a pie crust and bake for 50 minutes at 350F. I had to tent it after 30 minutes. It's very tasty, but I think it needs something. 

I drizzled chocolate over it but that's not quite right. Maybe I need thicker chocolate, but I was also thinking something very light like a pineapple sorbet. Or maybe even just some lemon zest in the crust could do? Not sure. At any rate - definitely a recipe worth working on.