Well, it's January so I've been bitten by the 'must start a new craft project or three' bug.

First off, and amazingly, already finished, was this:

My first American quilt. It's American, not so much because the quilting was done here (though I made the patchwork while I was at home with my sewing machine) but because of the kind of patchwork technique I used. The American system of sewing blocks is quick and easy to achieve good results, whereas English paper piecing takes forever and is much less forgiving. I cut a whole lot of 4 inch squares and sewed these into strips of four, then blocks of twelve. I added a plain strip to the edge of each to give a square block. Four blocks sewn together make the pinwheels, of which there are six. Finally I sewed strips of stripey fabrics to plain yellow squares to make the sashing (borders). All this took one evening and one morning. I spent no time at all thinking about colour or pattern and I'm surprisingly pleased with the overall result. When I got it back to America I hand quilted in a simple design and added the binding round the edges.

So now I've moved onto socks.

I've knitted socks before, but only on ordinary needles with a back seam. These are properly knitted in the round on three double-ended needles. The wool is dyed to produce the stripey pattern you can see. I'm really enjoying it, though it's fine wool and small needles so it doesn't grow terribly quickly. But if all goes well, everyone may be getting socks for Christmas this year.

For a couple of great one-liners from N.T. check out Matthew Mason's blog here.

So we didn't exactly have a gaggle of girls, but Helen and I did our best between us. There was certainly giggling, a smattering of foolish remarks, some struggles to find suitable places to eat, drives through the countryside and even visits to the airport. Though this time I didn't have to get on the plane.

We visited several famous landmarks of the local area (Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Princeton) and one or two lesser known sites (Paoli Massacre Battlefield, Ringing Rocks Park). We did some shopping, quite a lot of eating, learned lots of history, went to the cinema, practiced our queueing skills and met some of the locals.

Independence Hall was a fun tour. We'd been to Reading Terminal Market, the Independence Visitor Centre and had lunch, when we spotted a queue of people forming. Before we quite knew what we were doing, we'd been through security (and tried to persuade the guard that not only were we not twins, we weren't even related at all) and found ourselves at the back of the line, feeling suitably English. A Canadian who was just in front of us informed us that the doors were going to open at 1.30pm, so we waited patiently.

Independence Hall

The tour guide was a very small and disproportionately forceful man. He told us to take our photos as soon as we entered each room. Even if you didn't really want photos you felt that you were obliged to take some, in case he told you off. Once inside, he told the story of High Treason that began with the Queen's coat of arms being ripped from the court room and ended with the Declaration of Independence.

Scary Tour Guide

I learned a number of things I didn't know before. Like that the first president of the US wasn't George Washington but a man called John Hanson. And that the Declaration of Independence wasn't signed on July 4th but on August 2nd. It just happened to have been printed on July 4th so that's the date people remembered.

He was a good storyteller, but he did assume that his audience were all loyal citizens of America rather than faithful subjects of Her Britannic Majesty. I found that I kept wanting to shout things like 'God Save the Queen' and 'Rule Britannia', but I restrained myself.

We also visited the Benjamin Franklin Underground Museum where the most fun thing was all the telephones to people of the past. I spoke to William Pitt, Lord Byron, Mark Twain, John Adams and Immanuel Kant. There was also a model of the most extraordinary musical instrument invented by Franklin called the Glass Armonica. (I don't know if Franklin had a cockney accent or if he just couldn't spell harmonica). It's a series of tuned concentric glasses which resonate, much in the way that you can achieve when you run your finger round the top of a glass.

I blogged a few days ago about our aborted trip to New York. Here's the photographic evidence of our visit to Princeton:

Doesn't this remind you of Christ Church?

The day before that we went to Paoli to look at the site of the Paoli massacre. This was an encounter between the British and American forces during the Revolution/War of Independence. The Americans were encamped at Paoli, planning an attack on the British camp in the next few days. The British soldiers approached at night, quietly, without letting off a single gun. They took the Americans by surprise (though not totally by surprise - they did have some intelligence) and attacked with bayonets. About fifty Americans were killed and just a handful of British soldiers. The event is marked with at least two memorial stones on the field, both with the same inscription referring to the 'British Barbarity'.

It was very cold and there wasn't a lot to see, except an interesting fence. But Justin was an informative tour guide and I feel like I now have a much clearer idea about the war than I did before. And we had a very nice lunch on the way home.

Sydney, 2008, anyone?

Here's a helpful comment on Foucault and authorial intent that I'd like to be able to find again.