Deep Fried Kudzu

Last week, I bought three balls of Trendsetter Yarns in Stupendo (color #2421, lot #237) from the Quarter Stitch Shop in New Orleans, and two balls of Karabella Yarns in Festival (color #4, lot #69) plus two balls of Berroco Lazer FX (color #6003, lot #30) from the YarnHaus in Mobile. Here's a pic:


I just finished what I'm calling my "Saints scarf" since it's all black and gold - I think it will be great for wearing to the games when it gets cooler outside! This took 2-1/2 balls of the Trendsetter Stupendo and 1-1/2 balls of the Berroco Lazer FX sequin knit together on #15 needles.


I love the way the Stupendo's chenille feels, and the lashes in it make it really fun. I knit the Lazer FX gold sequins through the entire scarf and it's really sparkly and pretty. It turned out great!

Av and I went to the Saints game Monday night!! We're *very proud* season ticket holders (although...our tickets are in the "WAY up" section!!).

There was all kinds of entertainment during the day, and then we walked over to the dome to see the reopening ceremony at 5:30...




Once we got in, U2 and Green Day played - it was sooo exciting to see U2!




Next, Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint performed the national anthem, and the coin toss was done by Pres. Bush #41.

Everybody was just soooo happy to be back in the dome and see the team play! I think it was important for the whole country (plus...a lot of foreign journalists were there, including Al Jazeera, even) to see that the Dome is back, the team is back (we weren't sure for a while if it was going to move to San Antonio or elesewhere), the fans are back, the city is coming back...it was just so great to be there and be a part of it. It was really one of the most fun things I've ever done! I know it's something I'll never forget.

The game started out in the very best way - with a touchdown! We blocked the Falcons' punt and scored! Everybody went crazy and it was soooo great!!


I loved seeing all the characters, too! Holy Moses was there, there was a guy dressed up like the Saints version of Nacho Libre, oh...just too many to mention! People like that just *make* the game - they're just so much fun! Av and I were having a great time coming up with a character for him...we have some super-funny ideas!

Oh! And this girl was in our section...this is a blurry pic, but she was wearing a veil with a bunch of fleur de lis on it that said "just married a Saint"! Love that!

---And the best news ever is that we won the game, 23-3!!!---

Ah! We're back from two trips to New Orleans in less than a week...this second trip was *very* important - we went to the Saints game!! That's for my next post - but for now, here are pics from our stay at the Renaissance Pere Marquette in the CBD.

It was really nice! I liked the way the common areas and our room was decorated:


This pic doesn't show it, but the bathroom had a nice rectangle-shaped marble floor, and was walled with white subway tile...


...and I really liked the signs above the elevators on the first floor!

While Av worked during the day, I walked around the Quarter. The weather was *great*!!

One day, I walked down Royal, then to Chartres where I got some more yarn at the Quarter Stitch, then made my way to St. Louis Cathedral. It's soooo beautiful - I love to visit it:






This is the statue of Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square:


Love these fantastic galleries/balconies:


One of the shops I visited was Hové Parfumeur, and I got some of the vetivert frangrance. Oh, it's soooo nice:


One evening, Av brought me back an orchid!




We had supper one night at Dick & Jenny's, which is one of our new favorites. We started with the seafood cheesecake:


Av had the blackened redfish:

...and we finished with cheesecake with a praline sauce and a praline on the side. Every bit of it - from our super-friendly waiter to the delish food to the cozy & comfortable setting - was fantastic! We loved it!

This was our second stay at the Hotel Monteleone in a couple of months. The hotel is on Royal, amongst all the wonderful antique shops. While Av was out during the day at meetings, I was walking around the Quarter, visiting all the great shops and buying little things here and there.


I think this is the smallest room we've stayed in at this hotel. I believe it's the superior king room and we've been getting the deluxe king...but it really didn't matter much to me since we were only staying a couple of nights - it was just fine!

Tonight starts Rosh Hashanah.

May this be a sweet, healthy, happy New Year for us all!

I started this new scarf at my last knitting group. It's one ball of Zorro Berrocco Suede, 1-1/2 balls of silver sequin on white Berrocco Lazer FX, and 1-1/2 balls of #3SNOW Erdal Antalya (which is black eyelash with another string of white chenille bumps).

I made it as ten knits/row on #13 needles.


...and here's how it turned out. This pic is with the flash on, so you can see the sequins:


...and this is without the flash:


...here's a close-up. I love the way this one turned out!

BTW, the Erdal yarns aren't very easy to find, but I got mine at the Quarter Stitch Shop in the Quarter.

Av and I went back to New Orleans this week, so on the way, we stopped in Hattiesburg and had lunch at Leatha's, our favorite barbecue place in Mississippi.


It was amazing, as always, and I had what have to be the best beef ribs on the planet. Earlier this year, we took our friend Leslie (post here) there, and she is still talking about it! Well...I just couldn't help myself, so I took a pic of my plate and sent it to Leslie with this message:


...and this is what she wrote back!

We had a big laugh about it! hahahaha!!! I promised her in the next couple of weeks we'd go to that great yarn shop (Yarns Downtown) in Columbus and then down to Hattiesburg for Leatha's...and hmmm...being so close to the water, it would be a shame not to spend the night at the beach, too!

I got some of the prettiest dried hydrangeas yesterday!!


I have a couple of copper pots and made these displays:




The colors are just beautiful!


Earlier this week on the Martha show, they did a fresh hydrangea wreath - so pretty! I may have to try that next...

While we were at the beach, I read Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields - it was really, really good. At first, I was hestitant to buy it, because everyone knows that Nelle Lee (she's really "Nelle" to people that know her. We have a friend in Selma whose book was published with a review by her on the back cover, and when we were talking about it, I learned that she used her middle name for TKAM because she didn't want people to think her name was pronounced "Nellie") enjoys her privacy.

When I first heard that this portrait of her was being published, I didn't get it because I imagined that some writer went out and was worrying her at home - she is famous for responding to interview and public appearances with a two word reply: "Hell No!" - but after reading some of the reviews, I understood that this book was more about things like why she never wrote a second book than bothering her or making her out to be a hermit. So I bought it.

Like most anyone that has read TKAM (and seriously loved it) I've wondered why she only gave us one book, and this biography of her gives those reasons - from relationships and timing not working out to what had to be a feeling of 'what can you possibly put out that will even come close?'. The parts about her relationship and work with Truman Capote were really good, and I enjoyed learning a little more about her family background and her sister Alice, who is the oldest practicing female attorney in Alabama (there's a story about Alice's birthday party last week here from the Mobile Register).

The last several years, though, are really breezed through at the end of the book - but hopefully that was the author's way of respecting her privacy. If so, I can really appreciate that.

---
Oh! I forgot to mention earlier that one of my pics from the Monroeville courthouse was used in the OnSite journal:

...as part of the feature on TKAM that Patricia Suchy from LSU wrote! So neat!!

Av and I just got back from spending a few days at the beach. We stayed at The Beach Club in Gulf Shores again - we *love* it there. This time, we reserved a two bedroom condominium on the 8th floor, and it was so nice! Here are some pics:

Living area:


Dining area:


The kitchen (we still ate out a lot, but we also cooked a few meals):


The master bedroom:


The second bedroom:


...and there were 2-1/2 baths, also.

Here's our pool:


...and some views of/from the beach:




The view from our balcony:

Av also had a massage at the spa there - he said it was nice.
Ah! We had such a fantastic time!

Leslie and I had an idea to take some of our pretty scrapbook paper and Mod-Podge it to birdhouses, rather than painting them. Leslie went for this really cool mod-look, and I went more...mmmm...Victorian, I guess. They turned out so interesting & neat!

Supplies:
wooden birdhouses from craft shop
Mod-Podge
Foam brushes (the $.30 black ones)
scrapbook paper
scissors
glitter and any other embellishments you like
folk art paint for any areas that you'd rather paint than paper

Here's what we started with:


We found that it was easiest to to lay the paper over the surface it was going to be applied to, then to push it into all the corners, making fold-marks in the paper. It was from those fold marks that we knew exactly where to cut the paper. This was a million times easier than taking measurements.

We put lots of mod-podge on the wood, then laid the cut paper over it, folded the paper (like on the pic below, it needed to be folded under the eaves), and then mod-podged several coats over the top of the paper to protect it, then moved on to the next section:


This is mine from the front (I should have sanded the opening better when I started, but I did it after the birdhouse was dry). I added some clear glitter to the front of this birdhouse, too:


...and here it is from the back. I used two different scrapbook papers:


This is Leslie's - it turned out sooo great. She used four differently patterned papers (front/back, sides, roof, chimney) and it looks just so mod and fun!:

The white on the ledge is some mod-podge drying: we put on about six coats to protect them from the weather. Neither of us are putting them out in a tree, but we'll both put them on our porches and see what the birds think!