A Cria For Thursday

Look at the little guy born at Blue Moon Ranch yesterday! Awww! His name is Primo.

Words I Learned From The Internet Yesterday

austral: pertaining to the Southern Hemisphere

nervio (this one's Spanish): "a feeling of such intense affection that one trembles or grits his teeth with restraint so as not to harm the object of his affection." (I guess it's equivalent to the "I could eat you up!" feeling.)

(I got "nervio" from here, which is worth visiting because it has a picture of Picasso demonstrating the concept.)

The things you can learn from the interwebs!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Let's Think About Something Other Than Sewing For A While, Shall We?

I had to scrap two sewing projects over the weekend, which was deeply frustrating because it was a perfect weekend to "stove up" (as Mr. Isbell says) inside and be crafty. However, on Saturday a houndstooth skirt failed because I refused to admit the fabric was too loosely woven to be cut on the bias, and on Sunday I finished the blue chambray dress and discovered it looked like something issued to an impoverished Russian woman at a state institution for unwed mothers. (Not a flattering fit and not the best use for a plain [prison] blue fabric, in hindsight.)

However, there's knitting! And sweaters are warmer than dresses, especially when they're this thick: This cardigan is going well, but last night I detoured to the yarn store because all I could think of all day was socks (I think my ankles were cold).

So I bought some sock yarn that is computer-dyed to knit up into patterns, like this: I generally avoid things knitted on tiny needles, but I think the magic color changes will keep me interested--and keep my ankles a lot warmer than a Soviet-issue dress.

I Have No Ideas Today

Really. None.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's that time again--it's Open Barn Day at Blue Moon Ranch tomorrow. Come see the alpacas, buy some fiber from the herd, talk to Linda and Ed about their animals, and shiver (it's going to be cold, unfortunately). I'll be there in a semi-official capacity, too.

2. Here's something to make up for the Virginia Woolf quotes:

Virginia Woolf Quote Of The Day, Day Two

From A Room of One's Own again (yes, it's a cop out, but at least it's not a cat picture):

What is meant by ‘reality’? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable—now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech—and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates. Now the writer, as I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of this reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us…For the reading of these books seems to perform a curious couching operation on the senses; one sees more intensely afterwards; the world seems bared of its covering and given an intenser life.

Virginia Woolf Quote Of The Day

From "A Room of One's Own":

The whole structure, it is obvious, thinking back on any famous novel, is one of infinite complexity, because it is thus made up of so many different judgments, of so many different kinds of emotion. The wonder is that any book so composed holds together for more than a year or two, or can possibly mean to the English reader what it means for the Russian or the Chinese. But they do hold together occasionally very remarkably. And what holds them together in these rare instances of survival (I was thinking of War and Peace) is something that one calls integrity, though it has nothing to do with paying one’s bills or behaving honorably in an emergency. What one means by integrity, in the case of the novelist, is the conviction that he gives one that this is the truth. Yes, one feels, I should never have thought that this could be so; I have never known people behaving like that. But you have convinced me that so it is, so it happens.

Tuesday Project Roundup: No Projects Are Finished Yet Edition

I've been jumping between projects this week: A chambray dress with long sleeves and a skirt out of the same free drapery fabric that I made the Bruce Lee girl dress out of (that one's not for me; it's for the lady who gave me the fabric). I've been mulling over a trial pair of pants after Saturday's Pants Summit, too, and working on a knitting project, which will be this:(I will not, however, wear it in a wind tunnel with a skirt made of scarves, as the model seems to be doing.)

Of course, with all these projects to work on and a free evening last night, what did I do? Shopped for more fabric and patterns online.My friend just announced she's getting married over Thanksgiving weekend, so that requires a dress out of this shiny silk plaid. I want to try to make a light wool jacket before it gets too cold. And who could resist the sleeves on this baby?I couldn't. Look how delighted the pattern model is by hers.

Words Used In Recent Conversations That I Never Thought I Would Hear

1. pederast
2. logician
3. solipsistic

There's a scene in The Garden of Eden where the female character uses the word "paramour," and the male lead reacts thusly, which is how I felt hearing these, too:

"You really said it," David told her. "I'd never heard that word pronounced and I had absolutely no hope of ever hearing it in this life. You're really wonderful."
"It's a perfectly common word."
"It is at that," David said. "But to have the sheer, naked courage to use it in conversation."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I re-read "A Room of One's Own" this week and found so many good Virginia Woolf quotes. Today's resonates because it's fall:
"It was the time between the lights when colours undergo their intensification and purples and golds burn in windowpanes like the beat of an excitable heart; when for some reason the beauty of the world revealed and yet soon to perish…has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder."

2. Speaking of fall, the autumnal equinox is Saturday. Druids and other pagan types celebrate with various harvest festivals; Christians celebrate with Michaelmas (well, British Christians, at least).

3. This is a long but fascinating article from the New Yorker about a man with nearly total amnesia--his recall is limited to just seconds--but who can remember his wife and how to play music (he was a musicologist before his brain was injured). It discusses the nature of music and emotion and memory, and makes one feel really, really grateful for one's own brain function.

4. With the weather getting colder, I've decided I need to learn how to sew pants. So that odyssey starts tomorrow. It may not be pretty.

Another Birthday

My father and my brother have birthdays withing a month of each other, so now it's my brother's turn: Happy Birthday! He used to pull me around on the sled when we were little, and now I sometimes get driven around on "the wheeler." He's a good brother.Eddy is in training to go for rides on the wheeler, too.

Do You Know What Day It Is?

Yarr, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Here's a list of piratical celebrations, online and otherwise, and if ye be a crafty pirate, here's some embroidery patterns to do whilst sailing the seas, arrrrrrrr!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Metafashion Edition

Back when I thought I wanted to get an English minor, I took a critical theory class, where I first encountered the prefix "meta" attached to something--in this case metafiction, which the professor defined as fiction about fiction.

Given the print of this skirt, I think I could safely call it metafashion, or fashion about fashion. It's too bad that in the print the ladies aren't wearing skirts with that print, because that would be another mind-bending effect. But instead of thinking that one through, I could just twirl in my puffy new skirt: Also: Boo ya!

Also: Tomorrow is INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY. Get ready!

Monday's Word

I was given a book titled The Superior Person's Book of Words nearly five years ago, but I haven't opened it much, probably because 1.) I feel silly reading something like that and
2.) I secretly think I already know all the words in it. But I was stuck this morning for something to write about (other than goats and fabric and projects piling up) so I opened it and found this:

aporia. (n) Patently insincere professings, e.g. by a public speaker, of an inability to know how to begin , what to say, etc.

Who knew there was a word for what celebrities do at awards shows?

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I went to the fair on Wednesday but only had the camera on my cell phone, which did not accurately capture the excellence of a goat I met in the goat barn. She was such a good, smart goat that I asked Mr. Isbell if he thought his parents would let her live in their backyard. He pointed out that she would eat the vegetable garden.

2. Something I just learned: A group of penguins is usually referred to as a colony of penguins. When they are breeding, their colony turns into a rookery or a peguinery . When they are floating out at sea, they are then a raft of penguins. When they are on land they are a waddle of penguins.

3. The Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair is going on this weekend. It's at Wheeler Farm, so not only will there be the regular farm animals, there will be fiber animals and spinning wheels and yarn (oh my). PLUS, the Society for Creative Anachronism ("from the Medieval Times") will be there! Don't miss it!

4. Here's a quote from the country home site I posted last Friday, about what happens when you plant sugar maples ("be not discouraged"): We have seen the maple tree no taller than a walking-staff, become, in fifteen years, so large as to afford sap and sugar. Be not discouraged by looking forward, and say it will be a long time before you can have any benefit by sugar. You must remember the timber is growing every year, and wait with patience, and be assured the other part will not fail.

Actually, that's good advice for most things: "Wait with patience, and be assured the other part will not fail" (even if the other part is goat ownership).

Plant Picture ("It's Working!")

(Morning glory. I wish I could find fabric that color.)

Covey

I think I posted earlier in the year about quail, and how they live all around my house, and how there was a bachelor quail I had named Buster Brown. (I think. I really need to get a search bar on the blog, and remove the link to J. Crew since we broke up, and un-install Google Analytics because I don't think anyone at my old job where the account was based cares about how much blog traffic I get.) Anyway, there are quail around my house, but I don't think Buster Brown is much of a bachelor:
In fact, he may be a polygamist quail, because this picture only got about half of them. We scared each other when I came around the corner (I think the "sportsman" term is flushing the covey?) but they came back around the door after I went in and I got a picture. I like quail. And quail plural marriage.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Quick And Simple Edition

(I was going to call it "Fast And Easy Edition" but decided that wasn't the best connotation for a dress that could be worn by a girl in a Bruce Lee movie.)
Anyway. Not only was this project fast and easy, it was really, really, cheap (ha!)--the pattern was a vintage one my mother had and the fabric was a gift. I even had a zipper on hand, so total project cost was a spool of thread. I sewed it up in about four hours, too, which is making good time.
Here's a better shot of the print. The fabric is vintage, too, and I think in its past life it was drapery. But that just means it has a good weight and, well, drape to it.

R.I.P., Madeleine L'Engle

You've probably heard this, but Ms. L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, died Friday at the age of 88. There's a New York Times obituary that's very good, which contains this quote:

"Why does anybody tell a story?" Ms. L'Engle once asked, even though she knew the answer.

"It does indeed have something to do with faith," she said, "faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Go to the State Fair, where you'll see many blue-ribbon-winning dresses, hint hint hint.

2. I have all sorts of crafty deadlines coming up (an event-specific dress and two gifts)in the next two weeks. Good thing I have a period-costume BBC miniseries to watch.

3. Five great reasons to buy a Hummer

4. Here's a site that tells you all about planning, building, and maintaining a home in the country (aka RANCH HOUSE), often through period writing. There's even home plans. www.backroadhome.com

5. Have some pie this weekend! Think of how disappointed the kitty will be if there is no pie!

There's Pie?

Not At All Like The Blitz, But Still Appropriate

The power went out at my house at 8:30 last night, which meant I couldn't continue to sew or watch Camelot. Before I accepted my forced bedtime I ate some cheese and crackers by candlelight and squinted out some M.F.K. Fisher, which I thought was appropriate. This is from How To Cook a Wolf, her book about trying to eat and live well in emergencies (written for World War II, of course):

"...in a time of peril and unspoken fear [cheese] is an anesthetic and can make your guests, your own self, feel slightly stimulated by its unmistakable flavor and more than a little reassured to know that it still exists. "

Indeed. Cheese in times of peril or power outage is very nice.

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Tuesday Project Roundup...

...for some physical activity. My traveling companion and I hiked up to the tram at Snowbird, like I had done last year with my father. I remember last year being easier, but this was still excellent.

Someone marveled at the age of the canteen:
Someone else was too tired to look into the camera at the top:
And someone at Snowbird really should have put this sign at the BOTTOM of the trail:
And alphorns make anything better:

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Storm sewer spleunking. It happens. It sounds cool. The accompanying photographs are gorgeous.

2. I'll be enjoying a long weekend not camping, because the rest of the state beat me to the campgrounds.

3. The Nigel Slater cookbook had to go back to the library yesterday. I'm suffering from Nigel withdrawal.

4. I've been meaning to start my next knitting project, but haven't had a chance to just sit and work out the math (knitting involves lots of math! I was never warned!)

5. My next project will not, however, be a tree sweater.

State Fair

No, not the movie--although it would be seasonally appropriate to watch it right now, just like Picnic--but the actual event. I'm entering the happy dress and the vortex of craft top and I'm tempted to tell the ladies who take your entry that both my projects are named.

Woody, Cooper, And Mimi

Your cute alpacas for the day.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch Edition

This is the bottom half of the vintage dress with no instructions that obviously did not work out as a dress. It makes a pretty dashing skirt, though; the plaid and the big pockets make me think it would be something the boss lady would change into if she got her dress dirty rounding up the cows.
In other sewing news, my new favorite tool is the rotary cutter
which means I can roll-cut on a mat at counter height rather than kneel on the floor with scissors. If you put a pinking blade on said cutter you don't have to worry about finishing any raw edges, either.Although if you drop the pinking blade on your foot you get a zig-zag shaped cut. I speak from experience.

What Wallace Thinks Of It

Last night I was trying to find the attribution for a Wallace Stevens quote ("God is in me or else is not at all," quoted in The Little Zen Companion) (oh yes, I succumbed to the mid-90's trend for miniature inspirational books)(and just don't ask why I was reading The Little Zen Companion again)--anyway, I looked up the attribution for that quote and found this quotes from his letters, as well.

They talk so beautifully about work and having a family and a home (and I do, too, sometimes) — but it’s all worry and head-aches and respectable poverty and forced gushing.... Telling people how nice it is, when, in reality, you would give all of your last thirty years for one of your first thirty. Old people are tremendous frauds.

So much for encouragement and inspiration! Where's my mini book...

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Have you ever thought, "It just takes too long to cut out all those newspaper letters for my ransom note?" Then you'll be delighted to hear about the ransom note generator, with choice of white or yellow paper background.

2. Similarly, are you stuck coming up with a title for your literary work? Go to the title generator!(Warning: seizure-inducing website. But still fun! Seizures are fun!)

3. What your food cravings really mean. I don't know if this is really based on science, but it temporarily made me want to eat better.

4. Also, take your vitamins this weekend.

Better Living Through Nursery Rhymes. Also: Pumpkins.

Yesterday a request for someone to recite a poem came up, and I was the kid saying “Pick me! Pick me!”—until I realized the only thing I have memorized in its entirety is “The Owl and the Pussycat.” (I do have big pieces of a lot of real poems, but it just spoils a dramatic recitation to fill in the gaps with “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…something, something…”) So much for being so literary.

But why devote your life to memorizing poems when you can do THIS: www.extremepumpkins.com. You kind of know what you’re getting with a URL like that, but I was still surprised. Especially by the one that uses kerosene-soaked toilet paper.

He's Old! (Officially)

My dad turns 60 today, after another year of building furniture, making model ships, raising barns (no, really), remodeling bathrooms, reading books, putting in fences, helping with moves, wearing Hawaiian shirts, and overall continuing to be tough and handy, all while singing songs from the Golden Age of Broadway. And Dad, I hope you know I'm planning on writing one of these for the next twenty years, so keep it up.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Invisible Project Edition

Look, invisible project!

Also:

Monday Unrelated Information

I missed a post on Friday, so here's some things to think about this morning:

1. My friend's wedding dress pwned the County Fair

2. Watching "Picnic" with a gay man who's been prescribed Percoset is mighty entertaining.

3. Remember my favorite Robert Hass poem, "Meditation at Lagunitas," which ends "There are moments when the body is as/ numinous as words, days that are the good flesh continuing./ Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,/ saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry."? I had that sort of day on Saturday, and while there was Betos instead of actual blackberries, it was really close to perfect.

4. Another baby at Blue Moon Ranch--Hamilton! (He's the grey one.)

Introducing Captain Morgan

Captain Morgan the alpaca! (That's really his name.)
Cap'n Morgan be livin at Blue Moon Ranch until he finds himeslf a crew, arrr!

It’s 100 Degrees. Guess What I Want To Make Next?

1. Bulky wool cardigan

2. Flannel skirt

3. Wool jacket

4. Slippers

Yeah. Wasn’t the heat supposed to be over?

Tuesday Project Roundup: It Looks Like I Feel Edition

A little disconnected, maybe?

Although this is pretty easily fixed with a seam, a zipper, a hem, and three buttons. Then I'll look like the boss lady on a ranch, and then I can keep track of everything. Including the cows in the north forty.

Nigel!

Two weeks ago I wandered into Sam Weller's and checked out the cookbooks, where I discovered Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries, and discovered that Nigel is fantastic!

Nigel's recipes are delicious, Nigel's photographer is excellent (check out the site for an idea), Nigel's life sounds interesting in diary form, and Nigel's prose is delightful. Also, he's named Nigel. Really, what's not to like about him?

I like that there's a diary entry titled, "An altogether different ham." I like that he goes to the Chinese market and says, "Today I brought a duck home with me. I mean a dead one rather than one as a pet." I like that he directs one to fold in egg whites "firmly yet tenderly." I like his recipe for roast tomatoes, and the fact that he's named Nigel.

In fact, I'm so inspired I had to photograph the produce I got at the People's Market a la Nigel.(The tomatoes are going to be a Nigel recipe, and maybe the peaches, too.)

I'm sure Nigel would approve.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. My brother and sister-in-law celebrate FIVE YEARS of marriage this weekend. That's a long time--just ask them! (Ha!)

2. Quote of the week: "You say 'interpretive hippie dancing' like it's a bad thing."

3. Remember, you have this weekend to enter your sewing projects in the fair. And yes, there is a category for "everyday dress" and for "fancy party dress."

Another Cat-Themed Graphic Cop Out

You’re a kitty! Yes you are!

LOLCat Cop Out

LOLZ.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Let's Take Pictures Of Fabric Instead Of Actually Sewing It Edition

I've slowed down a little over the past two weeks, which, combined with the beginning of August and the realization that fall is five weeks away, is making me feel anxious.

I have patterns I want to make:
I have fabric with which to make them: (Can you tell I'm planning on yellow shoes for fall?)

I even have fabric cut out and ready to be sewn:
But lately there's been something else (farmers markets, Nigel Slater cookbooks, mindless fashion magazines that I read, thinking, "I could make that") that I'd rather do. I thought a sewing machine at home was supposed to make me more productive.

Flowers!

Look, I have some:
I have some flowers.

Friday Unrelated Information

1.. It’s getting to be county fair/derby season: Tooele’s is this weekend, Weber County’s is next weekend, and if you want to enter a baked good, sewing project, or wedding dress in the Salt Lake County Fair, you’d better have it ready on August 11 or 12. Then you can go see if you won a ribbon and watch the mayhem in the derby arena! Also, you can look at the fancy chickens. I love fancy chickens.

2. Here’s a link on how to predict the weather by observing the natural environment.

3. J. Crew, I don’t have your damn DVD.

4. How to tell if you’re a drunk astronaut:

J. Crew, I Am Over You

So I used to live and breathe J. Crew. Back in the days before the innernet, I'd devour the catalog and irritate my mother by falling in love with a sweater, without which future happiness was impossible. Then I got a job, and started buying my own J. Crew. J. Crew got a website! J. Crew stores came into Utah! I got a J. Crew credit card! I worked for J. Crew for about two months, where I spent about twice what I earned! You get the picture.

But now I can't look at a J. Crew catalog without wanting to fling it across the room, usually followed by some expletives. J. Crew, what went wrong between us? How did it get so bad? Is it because you are SO EXPENSIVE? Consider this dress, made of cotton corduroy:It's $120. I could make it for $12.

And while price is a big part of it, J. Crew, I started to realize something was wrong between us even before I became the cheapest woman in the world. I blame your prose style. There never used to be any copy in the catalog, other than the fiber content and the color name. Now, there are condescending "Did You Know" sections ("The secret is too good to keep to ourselves...so we're letting you in on what you might (or might not) already know") [note: what?] and useless bits like this: "Our head designer loves this design so much, we named it after her." J. Crew, I hate to say this, but I don't care.

So J. Crew, I'm afraid we're over. Even the shoes, J. Crew--even the shoes aren't quite what they used to be. I know this is hard, but it's better this way. For me.

(Now all I need to do is figure how to remove the link to J. Crew in the right nav here. I can't very break up with J. Crew and keep promoting it.)

Trial Marriages and Neopaganism

Today is August first, which I learned last year was Lughnasadh, a celebration marking the beginning of the end of summer. (Love those Druidic holidays.) And while I won't be doing anything Wiccan to celebrate, I do like to share:

Lughnasadh marked the beginning of the harvest season, the ripening of first fruits, and was traditionally a time of community gatherings, market festivals, horse races and reunions with distant family and friends. Among the Irish it was a favored time for handfastings - trial marriages that would generally last a year and a day, with the option of ending the contract before the new year, or later formalizing it as a more permanent marriage