Jenny sais quoi...

expectation

jennysaisquoi — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:34:19 +0000

First Baby Bib, originally uploaded by Jennysaisquoi.

My, my…how quickly things change. I have spent some time away from blogging for a while now. Mostly because in early August my husband and I found out that we are expecting…a baby, that is! It was so early in the pregnancy that we decided to keep it to ourselves until after my first ultrasound. I have had NOTHING but this baby on my mind since finding out, and as a consequence, NOTHING to blog about. But now, I am free to blather on and on about this much loved, much cherished little one growing in my tummy.

Everyone finally stopped asking us when we were going to start having babies, and that’s when we decided it was a good time. Aren’t we devilish? We like to keep people guessing.

With the news of our little one officially out there, I have been looking for baby knitting patterns on Ravelry (which, by the way, if you’re a knitter and not a member, do yourself a favor and sign up!). The bib in the picture I cast on last night and finished this morning from one of those patterns I found. The bib is absolutely adorable, quick to knit, and it has a little bit of cable knitting for those of us who are addicted to cables.

Other things I plan to knit for baby:

wash cloths
burp cloths
sleep sack
gown
cutesy pants
adorable sweater
hats
wool diaper covers
more bibs

Posted in Pregnancy Tagged: babies, bibs, cable knitting, knitting, parenting, Pregnancy

knit me baby one more time

jennysaisquoi — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:58:34 +0000

I love to crochet and knit. My grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was a young girl and I taught myself how to knit in my early twenties. Needless to say, my crochet skills far surpass my knitting knowledge. When I knit, I tend to only knit squares, scarves, long tubes on circular needles…I knit mostly for the satisfaction of knitting. The gentle click of the needles, the feel of superior yarn, and having something to do with my hands. I often practice different cast on methods (my preferred is the long tail cast on, but I’ve recently become a cable cast-on convert), and I try my hand at new stitching methods. I have never really tackled a big knitting project, because I knit slowly and the patterns are way more complicated than crochet patterns. I end up getting frustrated with my lack of progress and the pattern’s lack of clear instruction and abandon the task.

Recently, I felt the itch to stitch, and began knitting an easy textured scarf, but I also wanted to try something new. Enter my current obsession with cable knitting. This obsession has led me to attempt an actual cable knit project. And I found the perfect one: it’s a cabled throw that is knit in long scarf-like strips. The completed strips are stitched together. To my surprise, the pattern is super easy to follow and not full of a lot of vague instructions.

=Here’s the first strip.

I have never attacked a piece of knitting with such relish, but there is something so very satisfying about creating those thick, floaty cables.

So if my humble cables don’t inspire you to cast on warm and cozy knits in the middle of the summer, let me suggest you take a peek at a couple of my favorite blogs whose authors are also voracious knitters (and crafters) and much, much more talented than I. I’ve linked to some of their more recent knitting posts. Enjoy!

Sarah at Handmade Homeschool

Amanda at SouleMama

Lucy at { a black pepper }

Posted in pretty crafty Tagged: cable knit throw, cable knitting, craft blogs, crochet, knit, knitting

Hiatus

jennysaisquoi — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:43:12 +0000

It’s been awhile. Unexpected internet problems have kept me away and outdoors to enjoy a couple of rare sunny days. Hikes through the woods, trails that led across lovely overgrown fields, a long forgotten cemetary…

Seamus catching flies on High Rock.

Trail through a field on the most beautiful day of the year.

Pardon Gray Cemetary surrounded by a perfect rock wall in the middle of that field.

These pictures barely show the beauty of the day and the place.

Seamus enjoying the rock wall.

Posted in out-of-doors Tagged: cemetary, hiking, new england, outdoors, pardon gray cemetary, rock walls, tiverton ri

Nostalgic Collage

jennysaisquoi — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:24:15 +0000

Posted in Memory Lane Tagged: 80s fashion, 80s pop culture, 90210, 90s fashion, 90s pop culture, i love the 80's, i love the 90s, michael jackson, new kids on the block, punky brewster, saved by the bell

notebooks & lists

jennysaisquoi — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:49:19 +0000

notebooks, originally uploaded by Jennysaisquoi.

I love notebooks, journals, moleskines, diaries. I always have to have a set of at least three going at any given moment. A diary for planning, a moleskine for listing, and a journal for chronicling. The list in the moleskine is for a trip to the bookstore and yarn store today.

Posted in .miscellany. Tagged: books, lists, moleskines, notebooks, planners

101 List Update and Other Sundries

jennysaisquoi — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:22:31 +0000

recipe book

Originally uploaded by Jennysaisquoi

101 List Update and Other Sundries:

-My living room has been painted the most lovely shade of gray.

-My husband and I have had at least 1 date night a month since November.

-I have picked out, and intend to purchase within a couple of weeks, the most perfect couch.

-I have purchased a blank recipe journal and intend to start writing down my favorite concoctions soon. I had wanted to make and bind my own, but this journal was on sale and so pretty and practical.

-I have found the best family practice in the city, and a wonderful Nurse Practitioner.

-I am currently reading and loving Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood

-I am organizing my knit and crochet projects with the help of an amazing website called Ravelry.com.

Posted in .101 in 1001., .creating., .he/she., .health., .listy things. Tagged: cooking, crochet, in cold blood, knit, ravelry, recipes, truman capote

Bella Dia Afghan

jennysaisquoi — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:54:35 +0000

Sunburst Afghan 3

Originally uploaded by Jennysaisquoi

This is the crochet afghan I’m currently working on. The finished squares are bordered in gray, and the circles will be bordered in gray as well. The pieces are laid out on the throw rug that inspired the color scheme.

I love Bella Dia afghans. The purpose of them is to use up all of the leftover yarn from other finished projects and to use as many colors as possible so that each square is unique. I didn’t use left over yarn, but I am trying several color combinations to make each square different from the next.

I am using flickr now, which will help document my 101 project as I cross items off the list. You can check out my photostream by clicking the photo.

Posted in pretty crafty Tagged: afghan, crafts, crochet, granny squares, sunburst pattern

Grown Folk Music

jennysaisquoi — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:36:15 +0000

Here’s my playlist for summer ’09…and yes, I’m quite aware that not all of the songs are “grown folk.”

“Burn”-Alkaline Trio
“The Casualty”-Cursive
“Catastrophe”-Rainer Maria
“The Crystal Ship”-The Doors
“Decode”-Paramore
“Desert Song”-My Chemical Romance
“Don’t Panic”-Coldplay
“Don’t Stop”-Brazilian Girls
“Electric Feel”-MGMT
“Everlong”-Foo Fighters
“Feeling Good”-Nina Simone
“Flashing Lights”-Kanye West
“Golden Brown”-The Stranglers
“Hypnotize”- The Notorious B.I.G.
“I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked”-Ida Maria
“I Want You Back”-The Jackson 5
“Joga”-Bjork
“Let Go”-Frou Frou
“Lover I Don’t Have To Love”-Bright Eyes
“Parting Gift”-Fiona Apple
“Peace Frog”-The Doors
“Pictures of You”-The Cure
“Possum Kingdom”-The Toadies
“Running Up That Hill”-Placebo
“Straight to Hell”-Lily Allen featuring Mick Jones
“Tell Me Something Good”-Rufus featuring Chaka Khan
“Untitled #1″-Spain
“Wandering Star”-Portishead
“Wuthering Heights”-Kate Bush
“Your Ex-Lover is Dead”-Stars
“6 Underground”-Sneaker Pimps

that’s all i got.

~j.

Posted in .listy things., grown folk music Tagged: grown folk music, ipod, itunes, music

Roots

jennysaisquoi — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:08:39 +0000

My paternal great-great grandmother, ”Aunt Martha” Ray, was a slave in Rhea (pronounced just like “Ray”) County, Tennessee. The records that my family have been able to acquire indicate she was in her 20′s during the civil war. She died at age 116 (approximately) the oldest living woman in Tennessee at the time, and much of the country, I imagine. She was also the mother of 24 children, many of them light-skinned and light-eyed. My grandfather (my father’s father) was quite fair skinned and had green eyes. We assume that many of her children were fathered by her ”master,” but of course, we have no birth certificates that prove that. My family history on my father’s side of the family pretty much ends with “Aunt Martha.”

That is not the case on the “white” side of my family, however. Meticulous research by one of my cousins has revealed a long, unbroken line of descent all the way back to William the Conqueror. William I of England is my great (x26?) grandfather. His son, Henry I “Beauclerc” had a daughter, Princess Maud who married Duke Conan III of Bretagne, and so on and so forth…then I was born in 1981. A more recent grandfather, Captain William Cantril, was one of the founders of Jamestown, VA.

Looking at the big picture of my family tree, most of my ancestors came from Derbyshire and Hertfordshire England, and long before that, France (Normandy). And many of my more recent ancestors lived right here in Massachusetts.

So, let’s just recap here for a moment: I am a direct descendant of slaves, of one of the founding colonists, of the first generation of New Englanders, and of William I of England. So…thanks to great-grandaddy William of Orange, the empire of Britain was begun, which eventually led great-grandaddy Cantrill to help establish English colonies in America. Which eventually led to American slave trading. Which then led to my great- great grandmother being a slave in this country. Which eventually led to a descendant of Cantrill’s to marry a descendant of a slave which led to the birth of me.

Oiy! No wonder I’m having an identity crisis of sorts.

The first time I stepped foot on English soil (looong before I knew any of my ancestry), it felt like a homecoming. It may sound ridiculous and cheesy, but I even mentioned it to my husband (then boyfriend) at the time. I chalked it up to years and years of being taught American History and of its close kinship with Britain. Plus I was a bit of an Anglophile already. I was fascinated by British Royal history, and could recite the succession of the throne by heart. My copy of Pride and Prejudice was so worn, I had whole passages memorized (still do, for that matter). So imagine how shocked/amazed/thrilled/overjoyed I was to learn that my ancestors were part of that royal succession and that some of my ancestors were born and grew up in the counties written about in Pride and Prejudice. That feeling of “homecoming” I experienced was absolutely authentic. It’s almost as if my affinity for Britain is coded in my DNA.

Unfortunately, I will probably never know what part of Africa my African ancestors were from. I feel some guilt that I can trace and celebrate my European heritage but not my African heritage. But just because I celebrate my Anglo-Saxon roots, doesn’t mean my unknown Black roots are any less important to me.

For those history lovers out there, here’s a clip of a documentary on William I (great-granddaddy).

that’s all i got.

~j.

Posted in .a little cream in your coffee...perhaps some half and half?., biracial issues Tagged: african american, ancestors, civil war, european american, family tree, geneolgy, jamestown, jane austen, pride and prejudice, slave, slave trade, slavery, tennessee, va, william the conqueror

Science Geek

jennysaisquoi — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:40:22 +0000

I’m pretty sure Mr. Wizard helped set me on the path of scientific inquiry.

Posted in Memory Lane Tagged: geek, Memory Lane, mr wizard, old shool nickelodeon, science