As The Yarn Turns

A Cooler Saturday Sky

Today's Saturday Sky is a cooler sky from the front yard, with temperatures in the 80s (that seems so cool now) and a nice rain yesterday. It was a little humid but otherwise a nice day. The picture was taken about 10 AM.

It was so nice that I spent some of the day outside varnishing a bird bath, actually a large plant saucer that I had painted. Another part of the day was spent entertaining the little girls from across the street and trying to clean up the chaos in the house. . The girls love to come over to see magic and animals and whatever else we have going on. The house on the other hand still has a way to go, but it's better.

I'm starting to feel rested and revived again. By the time Friday rolled around, I was one pooped pup. It's good to feel human again. So now I'm going to relax and do some knitting.

by Sydney  |

What To Do

Somewhere in this pile of yarn is a pair of mittens.

Well I'm sure I could find a few more candidates in my yarn closet. I just realized it is August and the next month is September. That means I need to get busy if I'm going to have my Bitchin' Mittens finished by Labor Day. Not that mittens take that long to knit. I know how I am though. I'll spend so much time planning the mittens that I won't have much time to knit them. Am I the only person who spends more time planning the knitting than doing the actual knitting? Well maybe not more time but close.

"I'm exhausted already."

by Sydney  |

Home Sweet Home

It's good to be back home. I'm tired and really glad I don't have to go anywhere or do anything special for a while. I'm way behind on reading blogs. Hopefully I can catch up this week. It was a busy weekend. I took my knitting along thinking that I would have some time to knit. There wasn't much knitting time though. I felt lucky to get some sleep. I did get to knit on my sock a little on the trip down to Birmingham.

The conference was for the Southeastern Association of Magicians. The absolute highlight was the broken perch ceremony for Matilda the chicken. Matilda was a chicken that worked the act of two local magicians, Mort the Mystifying and Donna. Matilda passed away a few months ago at the age of sixteen. That's really old for a chicken. In fact, she's in the Guinness World Records as the World's Oldest Chicken. But that's not all. She's been on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She received a commendation from Alabama Governor Riley. She won the Olivia Bearden Award for service to man and animal. She's going to be inducted into the Alabama Animal Hall of Fame next month. This was no ordinary chicken.

So I thought I would show you a few scenes from the ceremony. Here's a picture of Matilda.

I was taking a picture of a picture, so that's why it looks so strange. This is a display table set up for the broken perch ceremony. I thought the box of tissues in the top hat was a nice touch. Honestly, there wasn't a dry eye in the place during the ceremony. The metal object on the stand on the far right was the pan Matilda would appear in, during her magic act.

Okay, you probably want to know what the broken perch ceremony is all about. When a magician passes away, they often have a broken wand ceremony to remember the person. A wand is broken during the ceremony to symbolize that the magic is over. In Matilda's case, it was called a broken perch ceremony. A former president of the International Brotherhood of Magicians performed the actual ceremony.

I was amazed at the number of people attending and I had to smile at the signs on the seats that said "Reserved for Matilda's Family and Friends".

We also ended up with another member of our animal family. Meet Sophie the Dove.

We actually aren't sure if Sophie is a male or a female. I'm not sure what we'll do about the name if Sophie turns out to be a male. She'll be joining our own magic act once she matures a bit.

With any luck, there will be actual fibery content in my next blog.

by Sydney  |