The 3rd Annual Southern Indiana FiberArts Festival was not a success. It was a FANTASTIC SUCCESS! More later...

A brief note. How could I have misspelled Fuzzarelly??? Acid - crazed spiders must have attacked my brain! There are not two Rs in Fuzzarelly and never have been. Thank goodness, an R was exactly in the center, so I cut out bad R and seamed the banner back together and it looks great. I will try to take pictures.

Sweetie, instead of a short week, will work 6 days this week. I was hoping he would be able to help with my booth at the festival, but I suppose if he's going to work he may as well get paid for it.

Knits 'n' Notes

The Southern Indiana FiberArts Festival is THIS SATURDAY. (The link is in the sidebar to your right.) I am finally getting around to painting the backdrop for my booth. Ahead of schedule, I'd say. Sweetie rescued the stencils from a dumpster at work at least two years ago. I knew they would come in handy someday! (Sometimes I love his pack rat nature, other times - not so much.)



Sort of just pulled this image out of my ass. Hello, we need a bunny for the banner. I didn't want to make the bunnies too Easter-ish. Or too anthropomorphic. It's hard to portray fuzziness. However, I am pleased with the overall look of the thing and the FUZZARELLY is big and purple. Hard to miss.




Knitting slowly progresses on the green shawl, opus 2. I steamed blocked it for the photo and it measures 19" x 45" - thank goodness. When I took it off the needles, it looked so tiny and shrunken. Like some snake skin.




I'll be selling a few bunnies down the river this weekend, so I have been grooming them. This is Pepper, who was so furry and cute that Sweetie had to take this photo.



Sweetie has a part-time job for at least the next three weeks, while a potential buyer looks things over. This work week is three days long and the next two weeks may well be the same. I see lots of beans and rice in our future.

I am done with the anti-robotic regimen! That stuff is nasty and did horrible things to my intestinal tract. I have been inhaling yoghurt all the time, which may have helped. But it was still awful and I am glad to be shet of it. Now we wait to see if the pain/infection returns.

Good news is that we got a half inch of rain yesterday with more expected tonight. Temperatures are more seasonal, too. The bunnies be happy.

Have you been to the past lately?

Bunnies and Movies

This is Brownie, back in March.



Now he's called Ginger.



Some of you all have asked about my sordid past in the movie industry.

It is not possible to make this short and interesting. The story will be long and probably not at all interesting.

To start at the beginning, it seems like I was born sewing. When I was 4 or 5, I sat on the floor of the front porch and "helped" my mom sew on a treadle sewing machine by pushing up and down on the treadle. A few years later, I sat in her lap at the new-fangled electric sewing machine and seamed some gingham for a doll skirt. At age ten, I was given access to an even newer sewing machine in order to make "my own clothes." Mom's only caveat was "Don't break it!" Thanks Mom! I made my up own patterns and made my own clothes. I had no idea that this was supposed to be hard.

(Back then, it was actually cheaper to sew one's own clothes. Imagine.)

I parlayed this talent into a job at a costume company, back in 1976. (Before China made everything for us.) I stitched for money for many years. My friend Judy and I started a not-for-profit costume company in Atlanta in 1984. Judy was the resident designer and executive, and I was the general dog's body. I was the shop manager, first hand, stitcher, rental manager, and toilet cleaner. (Judy was so supportive, though. A great teacher! She had a big library! I am what I am because of her. Thank you, J. Dragon!)

I did not go to college to get a degree in theater or costume design/construction. I am an autodidact. If I don't know how to do something, I get a book and figger it out. With varying success. (I am not a milliner, for example. My hats suck.) I learned to how take a designer's rendering, create the pattern, and construct it.

So. Despite a lack of ambition, my talent became known around Atlanta. My talent also became known to me, when once I went toe to toe with an honest-to-god-college-ejimicated costume person. And won. Actors loved me because their costumes fit! I was good, pragmatic, and fast.

Circa 1991, costume gossip centered on a new teevee show, I'll Fly Away, that was coming to town and how to get one's resume to these California people. Faxing was new-fangled then, and costly. I was not interested because I already had a job. (Actually, I had three jobs then, but that's a whole 'nuther story.)

Imagine my delight when two weeks later I received a phone call from the wardrobe supervisor of the new teevee show asking if I would be interested in working for them. Seems she had called around and My Name was mentioned by everyone as The Best Costume Person Around. I loved working with that costume designer and I really loved that gig.

I also learned that getting into the working-in-film door is hard, but once one's foot is in that door, and one is deemed a reliable, good, and diligent worker, then practically every film door is opened. The costume designer of I'll Fly Away liked me a lot and he told his friends back in California. So, I got work on several straight-to-video movies, plus a few made-for-teevee movies. And made lots of money.

Soon, I discovered that this industry was not good for my soul. These movie people took themselves way too seriously, as if what they did was important made any difference. No cure for cancer was ever involved.

So I quit. Took my toys (and money) and moved to a state far, far away.

For Buster lovers everywhere, here he is with our new couch rat, Claudia.



The deposition went okay, although I did have bunny anxiety dreams again last night. (Little bunny feet rotting off from being in the rain and mud for three days.) (My mind has some sick alcoves.)

I truthfully answered all the questions, even if that meant saying "I don't know" or "I don't remember." Hey, if it's good enough for Alberto Gonzales, it's good enough for me.

I did succeed in pissing off the evil lawyer at least twice but I kept my wise ass in the barn most of the time. He asked me what J. and B. were thinking/meaning/whatever five or six years ago, and I replied "My suggestion to you is that you ask J. and B. for that answer." He got livid! And sarcastic! Nice. I love making a man lose control.

The other time was when he tried to pronounce a town resident's name, unsuccessfully. He said that he never could get "those Slavic names right." I piped up and said that the name was Estonian. Later, after a break (this thing went on for TWO FREAKING HOURS) he had to say that he had it on good authority that Estonia was Slavic. What did he do? Email his secretary to get that answer? He's still wrong because Estonia is mostly Finnish and not Slavic. It's these little things that make me fiendishly happy.

I was also happy that his client had to pay for TWO HOURS+ of his lawyer's time. HA-ha.

I try not to be petty. Really and mostly I do. But this episode tested my patience and so I freely spent a few of my Karma Dollars.

On the knitting front, I got several rows of the shawl done during my questioning. My lawyer said he didn't care what I did as long as I paid attention. It's still not much to look at but I plan to put it on a string sometime soon for pictures and a good looksee.

Some of you may know that I once had a brinks'n'mortar store. After I closed, several short lived enterprises occupied MY space. This spring, paper was again on the windows - Viola's Gallery was coming with art, antiques, and clothing. Who the hell is this Viola? The Bitch!

I broke down and stepped inside a couple of months ago, all ready to hate hate hate her and her little dog, too.

Know what? Deb is so nice. She and her daughter bought the building and renovated it themselves so perfectly! Everything they did, and what they sell, is what I had hoped to do - until my money and energy ran out. I visited several times and once I wore my little Barbie shoe earrings. When Deb saw them, she went wild and pleaded for me to make some for the store. So I have. I'll drop these three pair off today.



If any of you all want to contact me via email, try fuzzarelly at epowerc dot net

But first, let's kill all the lawyers...

In spite of feeling detached about the disposition this afternoon and saying out loud, "Yeah, it's all cool," I had anxiety dreams All. Night. Long. I awoke exhausted.

The dreams involved my two usual culprits - costumes and bunnies. I was having to create/sew/manage wardrobe for some huge multi-million dollar movie - and of course, every obstacle in the world was thrown at me. The bunnies were with me and somehow escaped, so I was distracted with trying to rescue them from some danger. I think the movie dream was triggered by reading Sweetie's brother's ex-wife's blog about the crazyawful movie business. I'm glad she has knitting to keep her sane, too.

I'm always amazed at how some of my dreams can be so detailed, but I won't bore you with said details. I'm sure it is not something peculiar to me.

(As an side, as I watched the football pre-game silliness yesterday, I was delighted to see a hand pain commercial aimed at knitters! And yes, I did listen to all of Terry Bradshaw's, et al. blather. As sick as it sounds, it is as comforting to me as meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The Colts kicked Tampa Bay's ass.)

Sweetie is still on vacation and will go with me to the lawyer's office. Maybe we'll go out to eat somewhere kinda nice. Maybe stop in to see Ann at Grinny Possum.