Squirrelly!

So, it rained the other day. One benefit of Southern California sunshine, is that with rain, we usually get a rainbow in the deal. I run outside--avec camera--toward late afternoon to see if the miracle of refraction has happened yet again. And look what rolls by! A "make love, not war" hippie car! Nutty. 

Also geregnet hatte es. Ein zusätzlicher Zuschuß aus der südkalifornischen Sonnenschein ist das Refraktionsnebenprodukt aus dem Regen. Ergo laufe ich samt Photo zum Vorgarten  auf Regenbogenjagt. Jawohl: entsprechende Refraktion. Aber dennoch fährt ein happy Hippie "make love, not war" Benz mir entgegen? Na, sowas!

And speaking of nutty. It is 3rd Advent already! And I have a present for you: Squirrelly! "Squirrelly" is defined as "eccentric and restless". If you are one or the other or both, perhaps you would like to make one of these!


Na sowas zum 2.: Schon 3. Advent. Und ich habe ein Geschenk für Dich... Squirrelly! "Squirrelly" bedeutet "ekzentrisch und rastlos". Solltest Du entweder eins oder beides sein, vielleicht möchtest Du auch ein Squirrelly nähen.

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Squirrelly is a little plush pattern that is my gift to you!

Squirrelly ist ein Kuscheleichhörnchenschnittmuster und mein Geschenk an Dich,

Squirrelly can be stitched together using a few scraps. Wool or Eco felt works nicely, too.

Squirrelly kann aus Stoffresten genäht werden. Woll- bzw. Eco-Filz geht auch.


(Frech habe ich das Bild oben mit Nics Photoprojekt verlinkt. Mache doch mit!).

Squirrelly stands on his own: If you fill him partially with lead weight or pebbles, Squirrelly makes a dandy fine bookend.  

Squirrelly steht von alleine. Wenn dieses doch mit Steinchen bzw. Blei gewichtet ist, dient Squirrelly auch als Bücherstütze. 

Yes, this is my gift to you! You may download the pattern and instructions below. Pattern sheets are uploaded individually. I'm not that PDF-savvy to get them all onto one file without changing the size.

Pattern page/Schnittmusterbogen 1
Pattern page/Schnittmusterbogen 2
Pattern page/Schnittmusterbogen 3

Step-by-step photo tutorial ENGLISH

(Wait for it...wait...big file...)

Ja, mein Geschenk an Dich! Hier darfst Du herunterladen. Das Schnittmuster besteht aus drei Seiten, die ich nicht zusammen in einer Datei zusammenkriege...


Photoanleitung DEUTSCH


(Warte...warte...kommt's...große Datei...)


Und sollte ich etwas ganz krummes ("Deutsch für Fortgeschrittene/German for Runaways") übersetzt habe, sage bitte bescheid: Ich korregiere's unverzüglich :)


What, you didn't get me anything? That's okay, you'll just have to pay for your Squirrelly pattern.

Yes, you'll have to pay for it.

But you decide how much and when.

Just pay it forward. Any bit of goodwill anywhere will do, for example...

• Help someone carry their packages into the post office. 
• Let another car in ahead of you in traffic. 
• Let your spouse think he won the argument.
• Apologize.
• Forgive.
• Run an errand for an elderly neighbor.
• Treat the kids in the carpool to ice cream.
• Scrape off the snow and ice from your neighbor's car windows, too.
• Remember, there but for the grace of God go you.
• Donate your time.
• Refrain from leaving a snarky comment (no matter how very witty) somewhere on the Internet.
• Shop your local independent retailers.
• Plant a tree.
• Consider the amount of forced labor that went into making a new piece of electronics or clothing, then reconsider your purchase.
• Take public transportation or walk instead.
• Ask for donations to your favorite charity instead of Christmas gifts.
• Offer to babysit for the new mom on the street, if only for an hour of "me time."
• Donate the books you've already read to a shelter or prison.
• Give someone the benefit of the doubt.
• If you buy something on sale you were planning on buying anyway, donate the difference in price to charity.
• Share everything--waste nothing.
• Offer help to a returning veteran.
• Do the next right thing.
• Love.

I'm sure there's something you can think of. I'd love to hear what it might be! And if you'd like to share your Squirrelly on the "Sewing Clothes Kids Love" flickr group page, well that would be just grand, too!

And there'll be dancin'...dancin' in the streets!

...Dancin' in Chicago
Down in New Orleans
In New York City... 

...Philadelphia P.A., Baltimore and D.C now,
Can't forget the motor city, 

...Way down in L.A. ...
I don't know how Martha and every last Vandella forgot to mention Beijing, because dancing in the streets is something Beijingers know how to do.


I'm not entirely sure what this thing is. But it is magic.



It's comprised of blankets and wires and two wheels and cables and speakers and bungee cords and a car battery. And out of this thing comes music.



Or rather, Chinese pop music, which, face it, is just marginally music. Very catchy marginal music nonetheless. At any rate, this thing is magic because it makes people dance. Complete strangers of every age and every dancing ability walzing and tango-ing with one another. In broad daylight in a public park!









"Happy Friday." See? The writing on her t-shirt? "Happy Friday!"



Playa. That's all that comes to mind: He a playa, y'all.



Cinderella's stepsisters, maybe?



The magic spreads all over the alleé and protects the ladies' handbags, which they hang, unguarded in the surrounding trees.



If Chinese pop is not your thing, you are welcome to sing classical Chinese songs along to this gentleman's fiddle playing.



And this is the Catholic basilica in Beijing, the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception. The present building dates to 1904, but the foundations go back to the 1600s. It is the seat of the Bishop of China, chosen by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church and approved by the Vatican. Usually, the Vatican prefers to choose their own bishops, but, well, you know, it's China, so, well, yeah, ulletenus (that's Latin for "whatever"). One immaculate concept that this particular church has is nightly line dancing. Again, the old, the young and anyone in between line dancing. I think it is a blessed thing indeed.

And this photo doesn't fit in, but well, I like it and it was taken the same night.

Yes, it is Great.

One highlight of our time in China was a bike ride and hike to the Great Wall (or "Long Wall" as the folks in China know it).

This wall is long, estimated to be about 5,000 miles/8,800 km long, including all the bits of trenches and piles of stones along the way (5,000 miles is the equivalent of driving from Los Angeles to Myrtle Beach and back). And it is not one wall, but a series of walls and other fortifications intended to keep out different nomadic raiders. We didn't run into any nomadic raiders, so I'd say the Great Wall works.

Since this wall is 5,000 miles long, there are about 5,000 places to visit this wall. We went to spot called "Gold Soup". I think it is the Jinshanling section mentioned in Lonely Planet. Very thankfully, it was rather lonely indeed that day. Except for one Singapore business man and two Dutch backpackers, we basically had these miles of the Great Wall completely to ourselves.

This bit of the Great Wall is very near a river with lots of fresh trout.

This family has a little house next to the river with their own trout pond. They supply fish to the little restaurants on the road. That was the very best meal of our whole trip: Trout pulled from the stream and cooked up with mushrooms, pepper leaves and whatever else. I have no idea. But very delicious.

Here, is one curious local saying hello to Anna.

Now this is different: This is a window at a little inn. The little door is a place in the wall directly beneath the bed. The innkeeper will place a warm coal in this little door to warm the bed on cold nights.

I have no idea what this says. But about ten feet away, sitting underneath a bush is an ancient little old mountain lady wielding a wicked-looking farm tool. We paid her ten kaui, just a few cents really, to pass. Maybe she keeps the raiding Mongols out. She's done a good job, so she is certainly due her money.

 

A beaten path off the beaten path.

Perhaps part of the reason this part of the Great Wall is lonely, is that you need to cross this bridge.

Fire crackers to scare away the evil spirits! The Chinese invented gun powder, so their fire crackers are pretty potent. And we didn't encounter any ill-willed spirits, so all's good!

Great Wall grafitti. And I'm still thinking about, too...

Jack's "The One" (think Matrix).

Great mystery: They sky in Beijing and the environs is ... well ... different. Upon approach to the Beijing airport, I looked out the window and couldn't see Beijing through the cloud (?) cover. As we descended, I kept waiting to see an outline of, well, anything. I was completely taken by surprise by the sudden thud of terra firma under the gear. And I was still waiting to see something, anything, my first "thing" in China. Aha! There: some kind of tower structure. And the airport itself? Maybe we are on some really distant runway. No? Oh, it's right there. Okay, so it's fog? No, not fog: It was about 85 degrees out. Is it smog? I live in Los Angeles: I know smog. Smog is a grey, grimey layer that hovers over downtown. There is a top to it and sort of even a bottom. You can get above the smog. This milky white hazy stuff is not like that. Our entire time we were there, almost a month, except in the morning as it rose, we never saw the sun. It was sunny, but there was no sun. It was hot, but shade was not present. Fog? Smog? Haze? What is this stuff? Pollution? Really? In gloppy clouds that you can photograph miles out into the countryside? (I know what you're thinking--"Nancy, clean your stupid lens"--but the lens is clean (or clean enough). Some new kind of sky, I suppose.

Barnum & Bailey...Gilbert & Sullivan...Gumby & Pokey...Lavern & Shirley...Dolce & Gabbana...Sundance Kid & Butch Cassidy...Abbott & Costello...Rogers & Astair...Ernie & Bert...

...Spongebob & Patrick...

And so on and so on...

"Me and Jenny goes together like peas and carrots." - Forrest Gump (1994)

Why can't I post more often? I have plenty to post! It's because of the disposal. I won't do anything until I install the new disposal. How hard can that be? A wrench, a screwdriver, a basic knowledge of plumbing and electricity...all of which I don't have--yet. I am waiting until all these things fall magically from the sky. And then I will have a working disposal! That's the plan right now.

Okay, yes, I am in a little place of inertia. I have five new designs in front of me, each of which I need to tweak. I mean, TWEEEEEEAAAK. Fine-tune what's way outta tune. Retrace, recut, restitch, rethink, resketch, rinse, repeat, retrace...Oh look! Something shiny. I'm a bit too easily distracted.

Huh? Oh, hello! You're still there. Okay, I'll post some about something that was just about the coolest thing to have happened this past summer. A summit meeting of sorts: Reagan/Gorbachov, Eisenhower/Khrushchev/De Gaulle, and Luzi and Anna!

It was so AWESOME (awesoemaweseomawesomesawsome) to meet Nic (Nic, yes, you know; Luziapimpinella-Nic!) personally and spend time with her family. "Family"... having just written that word, yeah, okay, I'll throw it out again: Meeting Nic was like meeting family. Hello, yes, we've just met, but, well, a handshake won't do. C'mon bring it in for the hug, cousin! Anyway, on the Hildebrandt family tour of the California, Cousin Nic stopped by our neck of the Golden State.

And what is Nic really like? I don't need to tell you; you already know. She really, really is like that! Happy and loving and creative and full of energy and color and sparkle. Just follow the energy and color and the sound of a camera shutter and there's Nic. And she's a cheap drunk. Okay, okay, let me explain: "Cheap drunk" to me means someone, who doesn't need a lot to get them inspired or happy or motivated--"intoxicated," if you will. Nic can get excited at the littlest things, the littlest bit of graffiti or a rusty neon sign or a little sea shell. It's infectious.  And so fun to be around. And an inspiration. A beautiful person inside and out.

Come on back, anytime, Nic. You're family.

Hello yellow!

China's go-to color is red. It's symbolic meaning, derived from the element of fire, is joy and good fortune. Do you want wealth and happiness to come through your front door? Paint it red and let the feng shui do its thing. Plus, what's Communism without red? Other colors just don't pack the same power-to-the-proletariat punch. Go ahead: Try and start a global revolution in any other color. Mauve? Turquoise? Heliotrope? It won't get off the ground. Even though a good 7% of the men you'd want to mobilize are color blind and cannot even see red in its crimson glory, it's the color to go with.

Yellow, however, comes in a close second in China. Traditionally, the Chinese view yellow as the most beautiful color. It symbolizes the earth and generates both Yin and Yang. Yellow is the color once reserved for the royal family. The roof tiles of the Forbidden City and other imperial abodes are yellow.

In Buddhism, yellow represents freedom from earthly bounds and is the color of mourning in China. 

Nic of Luziapimpinella gave us some photographic homework to close out the summer. She said, give me some yellow. This is some yellow I saw.


You can join in the fun, too!

Yellow fire devouring incense offerings to the Buddha and releasing them from their earthly bonds.

"Yellow has the highest symbolic value in Buddhism through its link with the saffron robes of monks. This color, previously worn by criminals, was chosen by Gautam Buddha as a symbol of his humility and separation from materialist society. It thus signifies renunciation, desirelessness, and humility. Yellow is the color of earth, and thus a symbol of rootedness and the equanimity of the earth."

 

And a yellow backpack! And see the close-up of the matching Che Guevara polo shirts? Voted Cutest Communist Couple!

Yellow was the color reserved for the royal family and China's most legendary emperors and empresses were adorned at least partially in the most beautiful color. While visiting historic sites, it is popular for tourists to rent imperial costumes and pose for the family photo album...

...but this cheeky fellow upstaged the empress, don'tcha think?

A yellow garbage truck. I mean, garbage "trike".

Yellow joss sticks to offer to the Buddha. 

A yellow man-fan.

Hello yellow Hello Kitty! Pretty girl with a yellow bag takes a pretty cell phone photo.

 Yellow public telephone.

Yellow imperial roof tiles. The more critters you could have lined up at each corner of your roof, the higher your status in the Middle Kingdom.

Yellow shirt! Yellow dragon! Photographing the photographing.

Local greasy spoon (or oily wok?) set up on old yellow desk. These folks are good at improvising.

A yellow swirl of street art.

Beautiful blushing bride wears yellow.

Wait for it...

There. See it? The yellow writing? It says "Jimmy loves Suzy forever". Or close enough.

So, what yellow said hello in your world recently?