Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

From Edward’s Compatibility Club, Philippines Outlook 2010:

I think that this excerpt from a memo (below) issued by the CIA about the 1965 presidential elections in the Philippines aptly describes the coming electoral possibilities:

A Pyrrhic Victory?
Regardless of a Macapagal or Marcos win, the Philippines as such, and specifically the Filipinos, stand to gain very little indeed. Interesting as the current elections may be, the principal fact which they point up is a continued deterioration in the Philippines situation. The elections serve to aggravate and perhaps make more readable that situation; there is little chance the results will improve it. – Memorandum prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, October 27, 1965.

The CIA described the election campaign, the candidates, and the issues and concluded that as all three Presidential candidates were “Western oriented and pledge to continue close ties with the US and the West.” – Intelligence Memorandum OCI No. 2343/65, October 28, 1965.

The Memo also added that therefore, given their orientation, it doesn’t matter who wins, what’s important is that the winning candidate has a “socio-economic reform program” to temper down generalized public discontent.

“Socio-economic reform program” therefore means ‘Free World’ oriented reforms (i.e. education, streamlining bureacracy, modernisation programs, globalisation adjustments, etc, and such reforms should never include giving back land to the peasant farmers or giving greater economic power to local traders versus foreign ones).
I will stay in the Philippines, Mandy. The reason why things won’t get better, is because a lot of people in the Philippines is “Western oriented and pledge to continue close ties with the US and the West” and want to abandon the Philippines and go abroad. I don’t want to do that. I will stay here and make things different, and make things better.

Finally, my new crochet website - Crochetology.net!

I’ve placed some text and photos to get it started, and will surely build up as my crocheting progresses.

It’s a lot of fun going through my finished works and then trying to sort out the stitches to make the pattern instructions.

In a lot of cases, making the precise pattern is just impossible because the pieces were mostly made through improvisation.

Anyway, all the work on Crochetology.net help me clarify and reflect better my ideas about crocheting, about pattern and language.

I hope it is useful for others too.

Now I can get back to writing the posts about our stay in Malaysia - and the tour of Changi airport!!

This purse is a sampling of an edging from a vintage pattern “Number 2714 Purse” from FreeVintageCrochet. The pattern was originally published by The Spool Cotton Company, Book No. 219, in 1945.

THREADS: I used brown yarn for the body of the purse and two strands of yarn (blue and yellow) for the star.

HOOKS: I used number 3 steel crochet hook.

PATTERN:

A sampling of edging from a vintage pattern “Number 2714 Purse”
by Fatima Lasay.

Materials:
Brown yarn
Green yarn
Yellow-green yarn
Steel crochet hook no. 3
Sewing thread and needle
Small green glass beads
One large wooden bead
One golden glass bead

Purse:
Use brown yarn. Ch 41. Turn.
Dc in 3rd ch from hook. Dc across.
*Ch 2. Turn. Dc in each dc across. Repeat from * 24 times or until purse is of desired height when crocheted piece is folded in half.

Begin purse flap as follows:

Rnd 1: Ch 1. Turn. Sc in first 3 sc. * Ch 3. Skip 2 sc. Sc in next sc. Repeat from * across ending with 3 sc in last 3 sc from previous row. Ch 1. Turn.
Rnd 2: Sc in 3 sc. *Sc in each 3-ch loop, sc in next sc. Repeat from * across. Ch 1, turn.
Repeat from rnd 1 two more times or until purse flap is of desired height.

Fold crocheted piece and with sc join the front and back sides of the purse. Weave in all ends.

Star:

Use two strands: one green and the other yellow-green. Use Steel crochet hook no. 4.
Ch 8. Sc in 2nd ch from hook, half dc in next ch, dc in next 3 ch, half dc in next ch, sc in last ch.
2nd arm: Ch 10. Sc in 2nd ch from hook, half dc in next 2 ch, dc in next 3 ch, half dc in next 2 ch, sc in last ch.
3rd arm: Ch 7. Sc in 2nd ch from hook, half dc in next ch, dc in next 2 ch, half dc in next ch, sc in last ch.
4th arm: Ch 8. Sc in 2nd ch from hook, half dc in next ch, dc in next 3 ch, half dc in next ch, sc in last ch.
5th arm: Ch 7. Sc in 2nd ch from hook, half dc in next ch, dc in next 2 ch, half dc in next ch, sc in last ch.
Sc into first ch of first leaf. Break off.

Sew wooden bead with golden glass bead as button for purse flap, then sew star over the bead as shown in photo below. Make a loop of small green glass beads of size fitting the wooden bead.

The purse measures around 7 inches wide and 5 inches high. If you wish, you can make a larger purse, and if it is too soft for putting things in, you can stiffen the purse by crocheting more stars at the back. Or, of course, by using thicker yarn.

Again, this purse is made from scrap yarn left in our apartment hundreds of years ago by the previous owner. As with the Green star purse, this purse’s flap is sampled from the edging of a vintage pattern “Number 2714 Purse” from FreeVintageCrochet. The pattern was originally published by The Spool Cotton Company, Book No. 219, in 1945.

The body of the purse is worked first, then the beading, followed by the flap. Select an appropriate bead or button for the enclosure of the purse. In this piece, I used a wood bead.

Beaded Olive Purse
by Fatima Lasay

Ch 41. Turn.

Sc in 2nd ch from hook. Sc across.

*Ch 1. Turn. Sc in each sc across. Repeat from * 42 times or until purse is of desired height when crocheted piece is folded in half.

Begin purse flap as follows:

Rnd 1: Ch 1. Turn. Sc in first 3 sc. * Ch 3. Skip 2 sc. Sc in next sc. Repeat from * across ending with 3 sc in last 3 sc from previous row. Ch 1. Turn.

Rnd 2: Sc in 3 sc. *Sc in each 3-ch loop, sc in next sc. Repeat from * across. Ch 1, turn.

Repeat from rnd 1 two more times or until purse flap is of desired height.

Fold crocheted piece and with sc join the front and back sides of the purse. Weave in all ends.

Use glass beads, needle and thread to make the flowers and leaves design shown in the photos.

Use a wood bead or button for the enclosure of the purse. The loop was made of tiny glass beads.

I finished a crocheted and beaded shawl a few days ago. Below is a photo in black and white.

I am thinking of adding more beads to the shawl. Currently, the corners of the shawl are lined with glittery cream-colored beads. I also made a brooch to go with the shawl, using the same thread and beads, below, also in black and white photo.

The shawl was made with light beige color raylon thread - one which belonged to my grandmother more than 15 years ago, and a small part of the shawl made with the same color and brand of thread that I bought from the shops only a few days ago.

When I washed the shawl in detergent and a bit of Zonrox, the color of the older thread faded! Luckily, the color difference wasn’t too drastic (off-white and light beige) and the small areas of beige color was just around the edges of the shawl and a narrow strip right across the shoulders. So it wasn’t that bad, in fact, I think it looks better than if it was just all beige color.

However, I am not 100% happy with it. I have used it a few times and people seemed impressed with it but there’s still something that I want to do with it. Maybe later, I’ll accent it with some more beads, perhaps over the beige color areas across the shoulders.

In the meantime, I am now contemplating having a separate website for crochet (and other related things). I’ve been dreaming and hoping to be able to earn a bit of income through crochet, whether making them, making patters, writing about crochet, selling yarns, etc. Maybe later when we are in Bohol, I can sell (retail, in small quantities only) some special local fiber made especially for crochet work …

Just several days ago, I had to admit defeat on the challenge to crochet an entire dress: I ended up cutting the unfinished dress in half, separating the top (sleeveless blouse) from the bottom (an over-the-knee skirt).

The reason for the failure was poor design planning: as a single-piece, the dress looked horribly unflattering on the body because of the waist/hip band design right under a vertical strip along the front of the blouse, thus creating a bulge at the stomach.
So now, I have a blouse and skirt! Below is a photo of the blouse. I removed the brown buttons and replaced them with a crocheted lace with wooden beads at the ends. It actually looked sexier as a laced-up blouse. I also put some tiny seed pearls on the squares at the lower part of the blouse.

And below is a photo of the skirt, which is slipped on and keeps in place since it stretches and clings to the body (not too tight but just enough).

And, feeling rather frustrated with the attempt to crochet a whole dress, I decided to work on a blouse I made a few months ago. I wasn’t completely satisfied with this blouse, especially the lower part done in filet crochet because it looked so stiff and was too short. So what I did was cut away the filet crochet part, hem up the ends and then continue crocheting the lower part. And yes - here I go again - the challenge is to turn this blouse into a whole dress!

Below is a photo of the blouse-into-dress in progress.

I hope this time it works out!

Just as I hope that things work out on the advocacy front - when problems seem to be rushing down on us like a tropical depression, from ACTA to the WCO’s SECURE programme! And I am such a slow worker - crochet or other!

Here are two crocheted purses that I finished yesterday. These use thick yarn and the finer crocheting thread, as well as bright yellow-orange ribbons running through what are often referred to as “beading” in old crochet books.

I also managed to write a long-overdue text for the second in my Finding Linux series (thank goodness!) - over at Proyekto.

And … an amazingly sunny day today, when nearly all throughout the summer season it has been raining. Trevor said it’s been just like an English summer. Yes, that’s quite rare here, but pleasant, since the city seems spared from the sweltering heat. There was even a typhoon several days ago.

However, now, the summer weather seems to be cooperating just in time for the last week of the May fiesta. They also trimmed the trees outside a few days ago when the rains took their pause. I took a photo of the view outside, the houses across us are now visible, and so are we. � The tree’s branches, however, are still pulling at the electricity wires in what to me seem a dangerous way. There is an electric post nearby with a tree clutching it. When it rained the other day I heard the sizzling sound of electricity, so I reported it to the electric company and they came right away to fix it.

Ours is not the most pleasant location, actually, if one is not able to adjust to the noisy environment inherent in t-junctions: cars honk when they reach the junction, the trees provide good shade for noisy tricycles, the jeepneys pass along this corner too, as well as all religious processions. And there are two hair salons facing each other across the street - a beauty salon run by gays and a barber shop run by studs. They frequently tease and bicker. But we are used already to all the noise, often it is quite lovely noise, the chatting and teasing, the barking of dogs in the morning, but not so much the motor cars and tricycles. Especially unpleasant are the horribly loud motorcycles, I keep asking Trevor why on earth they have to rev up their machines so much.

Usually, the motorbikes rush along the streets in the early early morning, waking everyone up. And more, the noise and vibration coming from the motorcycles trigger the alarms of the cars parked along the sidewalk, and we are all left with the cacophony of electronic crows and chimpanzees. The past two early morning weekends the parade came along with great noise, Trevor told me, and I just slept through them all.

It is especially noisy this early evening because they have taken advantage of the clear weather to put up the banderitas for the fiesta. They have this long ladder along the sidewalk, several people around it teasing each other.

So, summer is back, I think … maybe …