Crochet, A Personal History

Boy, it has been a long time since I posted any new blog!  Well, time to rectify that!

I was taught to crochet in the fifth grade by my German grandmother.  She used the perfect technique to teach a shy, introverted perfectionist.  My grandmother told me I couldn't make a mistake in crochet.  If I didn't like something, all I had to do was rip it out!  She taught me how to start, a chain stitch, and how easy it was to undo.  She told me to make a chain then rip it out and start over.  My grandmother told me to try different sizes and tensions, and when I had a chain I liked to come get her and we would go to the next step.

Then she taught me the most basic stitch, a single crochet, and how turn at the end of a row.  Again, she told me to practice and whenever I didn't like what I had, rip it out and start over.  She left but she would check in on me occasionally to answer any questions I had.  My grandmother would look over what I had done and instead of critiquing my work, she would explain.  For example, when my rectangle started looking much more like a trapezoid, she told me it was because I had changed the tension.  But it wasn't a mistake.  If I didn't like it, I could rip it out and start over or I could use what I had.  I didn't have a potholder, just add stings and I had an apron for my doll!  My grandmother taught me different stitches, how to decrease and increase, and then she set me loose!

This is one of my fondest childhood memories.  I even remember the yarn we used - a small ball of yarn left over from one of her knitting projects, dusty mauve in color.  I still have that first project around here somewhere - a combination doll hat/basket!   I learned how versatile crocheting. You can start crocheting anywhere you can get a loop.  Start crocheting in the middle of a completed piece to add a handle or get a three dimensional project.  Add crochet to a piece of fabric for a different texture or for a pretty edge.  Use yarn with a larger hook and you have an afghan, use thread with a small hook and you have a doily.

I crocheted for many years but then I suddenly stopped.  Recently, I was inspired and started crocheting again!  I feel like I am reunited with an old friend.  My first new project, a shawl, is done and I have several other projects beckoning.

London Beer Flood

Yesterday, October 17th, was the 200th anniversary of the London Beer Flood.  It sounded humorous and I chuckled so I thought it would be a good subject for a random act of googling!  But it turns out to be more of a tragedy than a comedy.

A London brewery, the Horse Shoe Brewery, had an enormous vat that held approximately 160,000 gallons of beer.  A metal band snapped causing the vat to burst open.  The resulting outpour broke open other vats which resulted in more than 250,000 gallons of beer to flood through the streets of the St. Giles neighborhood.  Reports related that a 15-foot tall tidal wave crashed into buildings, knocking down walls and flooding ground floor rooms and cellars.  A total of eight people were killed; some drowned, some were slammed into walls, and one was crushed by a collapsed wall.

The Horse Shoe Brewery was cleared of any liability and remained open for more than another hundred years.



Agrypnia

Insomnia – lying there at night, when it is dark and quiet but you just can’t get to sleep.  You glance at the clock and notice the hours as they slip by without being able to get to sleep.  Trying to shut off your mind, but the thoughts just keep coursing through your brain.  Getting up in the morning, tired and just wishing that you could get some sleep…  I like the word “agrypnia” better than “insomnia”; “chasing sleep” seems so much more appropriate than “sleeplessness”.

I have had lifelong agrypnia.  My first memory of agrypnia was when I was a preschooler.  I remember being glad when I learned to tell time in first grade specifically because of my agrypnia.  We had a mantle clock that chimed the hours and half hours, and somehow, it was comforting to know what time it was.  My agrypnia only got worse as I grew older, instead of being awake for hours at night, I began to be awake for the entire night.

I finally started doing some research about how to prevent insomnia in the 1980’s.  I followed all the recommendations: establish a routine, and go to bed and get up at the same time every day; don’t take naps; eat before you go to sleep (but don’t have a heavy meal); exercise before bedtime (but don’t exercise too much); avoid stimulants, such as nicotine and caffeine; avoid alcohol (wait, is that a depressant or a stimulant – oh, no, it is both!); only use your bed for sleep or sex – no TV, no reading of books (wait… read books but not anything stimulating); and most importantly – avoid stress and don’t worry!  Right…

For years, I followed this advice.  Do you know how hard it is not to take a nap if you haven’t slept much the night before?  And to this day, I don’t drink caffeine after my morning coffee; in fact, I avoid any soft drinks with caffeine.  After a while, it really annoyed me when I realized that it was all “Do this”, “Don’t do that”!  Experts were saying that it was my fault that I couldn’t sleep – my thoughts, my actions, my choices were preventing me from sleeping!

After years of trying to follow all the advice, I began to think “How dare you?  What makes you the expert?  Unless you have insomnia yourself, you have no reason to say anything!”  I even read an article that said insomnia was a learned behavior, and when I couldn’t sleep I was supposed to get up and do something I really hated, like washing the kitchen floor.  This was supposed to condition me to decide to sleep because the consequences were unpleasant.  Like being so tired but lying as hour after hour passed wasn’t unpleasant enough!  Like struggling though a day at work wasn’t difficult enough!

I decided that if the “expert” hadn’t lain awake for hours and hours at night, wondering why sleep was so elusive, I wouldn’t listen to them!!!  If the “expert” hadn’t personally experienced their own agrypnia, and not just an occasional sleepless night, then their advice was practically meaningless.  Trying to sleep is difficult enough without wondering what I have done to cause my sleeplessness.  That doesn’t turn off my brain at all.

Sigh…. I am really tired but I can’t go to sleep tonight.  Again!

You know what is the worst?  I googled insomnia remedies again this evening, and they haven't changed since the 1980's!  The same useless advice.  Oh, well.

Phantom Music

I haven’t written a blog here in a while for several personal reasons but it is time to shake off the shackles and write again so here goes…

Musical Ear Syndrome!  Or as I like to call it, phantom music.  Musical Ear Syndrome is a form of non-psychiatric auditory hallucination, also called Musical Hallucination or Musical Tinnitus.  Most people have heard of tinnitus, or ringing in the ears.  It is a perception of sound when none exists.  Musical tinnitus (or Musical Ear Syndrome) is when that sound is perceived as music.  Usually, victims hear musical noises ranging from vocals to instrumental music, and some even hear announcers or commercials.

Most people don’t talk about it because they are afraid of being accused of being mentally unstable or psychotic.  This might be a good time to talk about psychiatric auditory hallucinations.  Psychiatric auditory hallucinations are generally defined as voices talking to the victim (on a personal level), usually associated with schizophrenia or mania.  There can also be medical reasons for some auditory hallucinations, such as brain lesions or medication side effects.  Musical Ear Syndrome (or MES) does not fall into these categories.

As I mentioned above, most people don’t talk about it because they don’t want to be considered crazy.  But MES is becoming increasing recognized as separate from other auditory hallucinations making it easier for people to discuss it.  Experts believe that MES is related to hearing problems, and usually (but not always), is experienced by those with hearing loss.

I started googling this subject because I have experienced this phenomena myself.  Let me start by stating that I have a HUGE problem with insomnia.  Every few weeks, I have extreme difficulty getting more than a couple of hours of sleep several nights in a row.  I become an extremely light sleeper, and can be awakened by the slightest sound.  I have been awakened by the sound of the refrigerator coming on in the middle of the night, in the kitchen when I am in the bedroom, on a different floor!  In order to combat this, I turn on a fan in the room to help mask normal nighttime sounds.

Then, occasionally, I would be awakened by music.  I would assume it was my clock radio coming on - I would reach for the alarm clock and notice that it was hours before I needed to get up!  So where was the music coming from?  I would try and hunt the phantom music down but it was faint and difficult to trace.  The music was not coming from my clock radio, it wasn’t the neighbor, nor was it anything I could find to turn off!  The phantom music would last for a period of time lasting from about thirty minutes to a couple of hours.  I would get so frustrated!

I finally complained to my sweetie, and she googled it and told me about MES.  After researching it myself, I realized that my phantom music was triggered was my fan!  The item I used to mask noise was causing the phantom music that woke me up and kept me up!  It was such a relief to know that there was this thing called Musical Ear Syndrome, and I wasn’t the only person to experience it.

Now, when MES wakes me up in the middle of the night, I turn off the fan and am able to get back to sleep.  However, turning off the fan allows other noises to disturb me but for some reason, the sound of the refrigerator or furnace does not bother me nearly as much as the phantom music.

Papercuts Papercuts Papercuts

I know that I have made a couple of entries regarding papercuts.  The reason is that I know the artist, Elaine LaMarche, and we commissioned a piece of art.  Now, I am so excited!  I just have to give a shout out to Elaine LaMarche of E-Art Judaicuts - Noah's Arc won first place in an art show!  Woo hoo!  This beautiful piece of art deserves all of the accolades it has received.  Check out her stuff on her website and follow her on Facebook.

Noah's Arc



Frances Hodgson Burnett

This all started because I was looking for something new to read on my Kindle that was cheap! I have been rereading some of my favorite books so I decided to see if there was a free/cheap version of The Secret Garden or The Little Princess, both written by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  To my delight, I found the entire collected works of Frances Hodgson Burnett for under $3.00!

After downloading the book, I was surprised at how many books there were in this collection, so I decided to find out what I could about the author.  I was shocked at how little information is out there, and so much of it is contradictory!  For heavens sake, she didn't live that long ago.  She was born in 1849 and died in 1924 and her children's books are considered classics!  Well, that just made me more curious.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in England and emigrated to the United States at the end of the Civil Way at age 15.  Some websites call her English and other call her American.  All agree that she started writing as a child and continued throughout her entire life.  I could not find any agreement on when her father died.  I read he died in 1852, 1853, 1854, 1865.  After his death, the family lived in abject poverty, genteel poverty, or gradually declining affluence.  However, everyone agrees that she supported her family with her writing.  I saw that she was successful enough to support her family starting at age 18, 19, or 20, and that she was not successful until much later in life.

Again, websites disagree about how many books Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote.  They range from just a few to thirty, forty, fifty and sixty.  Now, she is strictly known as an author of children's books.  But during her lifetime, she was apparently best known for her children's book or her historical novels or her books for adults or for her plays.  Speaking of her plays, I read that she was a playwright as well as that she didn't write plays, just that her novels that were dramatized for the stage.

Some websites say the critics loved Frances Hodgson Burnett and others say that the critics really disliked her, critiquing her more for her private life than for her writing.  She was considered scandalous.  She married and divorced twice, she earned her own money and controlled it herself, she liked fashion and travel, and was entirely too independent.

Most everything I read agrees that her first marriage was unhappy.  Frances Hodgson met her first husband, Swan Burnett, shortly after arriving in Tennessee as a teenager.  Swan Burnett became a doctor, and I read on one website that she put him through medical school with her earnings as a writer.  Or she just financed his advanced training.  Or her husband was Dr. L. M. Burnett out of Washington, DC.

The most interesting contradictions I found is regarding Frances Hodgson Burnett's second husband.  Some websites state he was an English doctor, a secretary, her business manager, or an actor.  One website stated that he blackmailed her into marriage in order to control her fortune.

With all the contradictions I found, I felt that I had to find out more about Frances Hodgson Burnett.  I downloaded her biography to my Kindle and I should be able to find out the true story of this fascinating woman.

Random Girls

I was taking a break and turned on the TV; Funny Girl was on.  It is a Barbra Streisand movie about and an early Broadway star, Fanny Brice.  And so begins my Google searching!  The movie took some liberties with the real life of Fanny Brice but Barbra Streisand depicted her fairly accurately.  I was surprised how differently Fanny Brice could appear in photographs.  I can definitely see the comedic actress but she wasn’t that ugly.

Fanny Brice

Next, I looked up the Ziegfeld Follies.  They were put on by Florenz Ziegfeld and were around for around 25 years starting around 1910.  I guess they were sort of a cross between more modern Broadway musicals and vaudeville.  The chorus girls, or Ziegfeld Girls, were famous for being beautiful, but I was surprised at how risqué most of their pictures were.  I guess they were the pinups of their time.  Reading a bit more, I found out that many stars got their start as a Ziegfeld Girl (but I recognized more that were turned down by Flo Ziegfeld).

Ziegfeld Girl

Lillian Lorraine was considered the most famous of the Ziegfeld Girls.  Apparently, she had an affair with Flo Ziegfeld and he loved her even after their affair ended.  I looked up her image and was surprised… I think she wasn’t that good looking.

Lillian Lorraine

Researching even more, I found out that the Ziegfeld Girls were preceded by the Floradora Girls.  Floradora was the first of a series of musicals during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s that became really popular.  These chorus girls were not nearly as  risqué as the Ziegfeld Girls.  Amazing what a difference about fifteen years can make!

Floradora Girls

And before the Floradora Girls were the Gibson Girls.  I was expecting the Gibson Girls to be similar to the Floradora and Ziegfeld Girls.  But, instead of being chorus girls on stage, they were a illustrations by an artist, Charles Dana Gibson.  Not real.  In fact, very not real.  I know, that is not grammatically correct but I couldn't believe how unrealistic he depicted women.  He combined two different standards of beauty into an impossible ideal; he wanted a “fragile lady” with the “voluptuous woman”.  In order to reproduce the look of a Gibson Girl, women needed to lean forward and have a tightly cinched waist.  In fact, in order to maintain such a ridiculous posture, a special corset was developed to allow women to depict this artist's ideal.

Edwardian S-Curve Corset