Tuesday Project Roundup: Extremely Full And Incredibly Plaid Edition

And with my apologies to Jonathan Safran Foer for that title, here is the plaid dress I worked on last week:
I think I just had too much exposure to it, because I should love it--it's red and pink at the same time and it's the puffiest party dress I've worn since I was about nine. I'm just disappointed that the fit is off, because I made a practice bodice out of muslin and a bodice lining before I actually did the bodice out of the silk, and the waist still came out too big. And it was kind of a lot of work for a one-event dress.

But maybe I can wear it again to the Nutcracker. Hell, I could be in the Nutcracker in this.

She's Back!

The laptop, that is--I dared the Gateway the Saturday night after Thanksgiving (oh the humanity!) and got her back as good as new. Hooray!

Other things I did with a week off and no Internet:
1. Sewed a dress for my friend's wedding.
2. Met with the same friend to get briefed on the wedding set-up I had agreed to supervise.
3. Started the second job I took to pay for the laptop repair.
4. Made ten pounds of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving at my brother's (five pounds plain, five pounds chive and onion).
4a. Made a macadamia nut pie, also for Thanksgiving.
5. Braved Target the day after Thanksgiving (oh the humanity!) to get a belt to go with the dress I made because the fit was slightly off.
6. Set up (and then attended, in the slightly ill-fitting dress) my friend's wedding reception.
7. Ordered 80% of my Christmas gifts. (I borrowed some internet for that.)
8. Finished both a knitted gift and a sewn gift for co-workers.

But between 1, 2, 6, and 3, it almost feels as if I didn't take vacation. Also, does anyone need any leftover mashed potatoes?

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I won’t be posting next week, because I have the week off form work and the laptop went back to Apple for repair yesterday. (Hooray, it can be fixed without bankrupting me!)

2. I’ve been wanting to get a bird feeder for the winter. I might just have to get the BirdCam to go with it.

3. Check out this vintage typewriter store: http://mytypewriter.com. They have some beauties (and they’re not cheap). Maybe I’ll have to break out my old Underwood while the laptop’s down.

4. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, all six of you blog readers. And check out the newest version of the LOLcat meme: LOLgrims, or Thanksgiving-themed pictures captioned in LOLspeak!

Not Dead Yet!

I know it’s turned into Laptop Week on the blog and that whatever sympathy people had is quickly drying up, but I had to share some good news: It turned on last night! It’s not dead yet! It’s getting better! It thinks it will go for a walk! It feels happy!

Ahem. Those movie quotes get out of control. And the laptop doesn’t feel that happy, because its keyboard is fried. But I’m happy that it’s a keyboard replacement and not a MacBook replacement.

Now I want to watch Monty Python…

Wednesday’s Film Recommendations

You might have heard that I spilled cereal on my laptop (my brother had to email and ask, “How exactly did that go down? ‘Hmm, computer, would you like to try some of this too?’ Or was it more of a throwing action?”). But on the bright side, I’ve seen a string of good movies lately, which has been some nice escapism.

I highly recommend The Darjeeling Limited; the short that begins it, “Hotel Chevalier,” will make you want to go to Paris and wear a hotel robe. I finally saw Little Miss Sunshine, on the recommendation of the same brother teasing me about the laptop, and that’s pretty fabulous, too. And last night—after a day involving video editing (I’m a copywriter, by the way; that’s all I’m saying), getting paperwork notarized for a credit card dispute (no, I did NOT charge $500 at sears.com), and all sorts of other issues—I watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou again. There’s just something about watching someone else’s crisis on film.

(Actually, I suppose that something would be catharsis. So watch these three good cathartic movies in case you’ve had a bad week, too.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: There Is None Because I Can’t Upload Photos To A Broken Laptop

We Interrupt This Blog…

…for the first installment of an exciting saga titled “I Spilled Cereal On My Laptop Last Night.” (You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! Actually, you’ll just cry and swear off cereal forever! Because what is an almost-28-year-old doing eating cereal anyway!)

While I’d love to use my work PC to post pictures of cats wanting pie, I think that’s generally frowned on as “unproductive.” I’ll try to stealth-post as much as possible but that will depend on how many coworkers are standing around pinning “creative” “concepts” to the walls. (You’d be surprised how popular that is here.)

So, to be continued...

Friday Unrelated Information

1. November is National Novel Writing Month--NaNoWriMo--so if you've been procrastinating, say, most of your adult life, you could take the challenge and try to get 50,000 words on paper by month's end.

2. November is also NaKniSweMo, or National Knit a Sweater Month. If your novel doesn't work, you could try this instead. (I, however, am knitting a vest, making it NaKniVeMo.)

3. I saw these high-design cat beds featured yesterday (click the picture to see all styles, including the "kitty pod"). Want!

4. BoingBoing steered me to this blog that showcases the painted background of animated films--lots of it is gorgeous and very evocative. It also made me watch The Sword in the Stone last night.

"Then there was the bad weather."

The haze and the watery sun and the leaves drying out and losing their color have not been bad weather, but they've been a little depressing. (The time change making it dark at six doesn't help, either.) I had to think of this passage that starts one of my favorites, A Moveable Feast. Hemingway's trick for the November depression was to leave Paris and go somewhere even colder, like the Alps. Nice. If I ever live in Paris, I'll let you know how it works.

"Then there was the bad weather. It would come in one day when the fall was over. We would have to shut the windows in the night against the rain and the cold wind would strip the leaves from the trees in the Place Contrescarpe...Now that the bad weather had come, we could leave Paris for a while for a place where this rain would be snow coming down through the pines and covering the road and the high hillsides and at an altitude where we would hear it creak as we walked home at night."

And then there's this in the next chapter:
"When we came back to Paris it was clear and cold and lovely. The city had accommodated itself to winter...and on the streets the winter light was beautiful. Now you were accustomed to see the bare trees against the sky and you walked on the fresh-washed gravel paths through the Luxembourg gardens in the clear sharp wind. The trees were sculpture without their leaves when you were reconciled to them..."

Maybe the trick is just getting reconciled.

No, the trick is getting reconciled in Paris.

O RLY, SALT LAKE?

O really!
As I said, I don't know a lot about politics and this blog is supposedly about literature, but I am just happy that someone who refused to put up billboards because he considers them a blight on the landscape was able to win without the help of billboards.

Also, did you know that "'Progressive' has become a new catch-phrase for 'liberal'"? The Deseret News thinks so.

(Photo ganked from the Salt Lake Tribune site, taken by Trent Nelson, probably in violation of Trent's copyright. Sorry, Trent.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Deadlines, Kitty Hats, And I Hate Blogger Edition

The last week or so has been a staging time for me, sewing-wise: I have to decide who gets a homemade Christmas/birthday/wedding/shower present, when I need to make the presents, and what I'll be making for myself to wear to these events that require presents. And I also figured out how all of that coincides with JoAnn sales and paychecks. There have been lots of lists.

Even the holiday deadlines for knitting started last week, with some, um, kitty hats for a Halloween party. We went as the co-host's two kittens, which was a success. (Blogger is refusing to let me load the pictures, so you'll just have to imagine knitted bonnets with ears.)

But knitting with synthetic fur yarn on a deadline isn't my favorite thing, so I'm actually relieved to start the crafty frenzy of seasonal gifts--I won't be covered in orange fuzz when I work on these.

Election Day Tomorrow

I made a special trip a few weeks ago to the County Clerk's office so I could register at my new address on the last day possible. (See how font choices can motivate people, whether for good or ill?)

I've spent most of my life trying to ignore politics, but I think I'm waking up now. And while my political theory is an inchoate mix of V for Vendetta, Brazil, and some Ayn Rand, I'm trying to learn more. I can't fathom that people do not vote, especially women whose great-grandmothers weren't able to.

So if you're registered, go vote tomorrow in your local elections. And in keeping with my incoherent politics, here's an excellent essay about how the domestic "War on Terror" has devolved into the "War on the Unexpected."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Today's new word is affineur. As you might guess, it's French, and refers to the person in charge of affinage, or the refining and ripening of cheese.

2. Speaking of cheese, the Hawaii Island Goat Dairy on the Big Island is looking for interns: They'll give you room and board and you'll give them two to three months of bottle-feeding kids, feeding goats, farm work, and making cheese.

3. And speaking of farms, yesterday I received the color card (like a fabric swatch book, but with yarn) that I had ordered from a merino sheep ranch in Montana. Now, usually natural fiber yarn has either no smell or a faint-but-not-unpleasant animal smell. I don't want to sound like I go around smelling cats, but it's comparable to the smell of a cat: clean and fresh but furry. But the Montanta yarn on the color card, even in two-inch sample lengths, smelled like cold springtime air and flowers. Seriously. I don't know what they're putting on their sheep up there, but I want to go visit and see/smell for myself.

Helen S. Jones On Why People Sew:

"...mostly, sewing is done because someone wants better-looking, better-made clothes than the same amount of money could buy; or a high fashion look at low budget figure; or a unique custom-created garment. They sew because it's fun! They sew because it's the thing to do. It is the proud and fascinating leisure-time effort of women of all walks of life--and some men, too."


(From a textbook published in 1970, Hi-Fashion Sewing and Tailoring. I was trying to find fitting info for taking in a dress bodice, but the book assumes the reader knows how to do that already and just provides detailed fitting info for pants--pants which were just starting to be as acceptable in all social situations as a dress in the '70s's.)

Hey Look, Another Pagan Holiday

It's Samhain, the holiday that kicked off the "dark" half of the Celtic year and marked the absolute end of both summer and the harvest. Samhain got overlaid with a Christian veneer and made into All Souls Day (check out that holiday's origins: "Hey, I can hear the groans of souls in purgatory coming through the rocks!"), which in turn spawned Halloween, due to the Catholic church's custom of thinking days began in the evening--hence, the night before All Souls Day was when the festival itself started.

Personally, I haven't been excited for Halloween since I was Rainbow Brite 20 years ago but I know there are lots of adults who still enjoy it. And it gets me a free lunch at work and at least an hour away from my desk for the costume contest, so I can't really complain.

Unlike me, alpacas love to dress up:This is Bull, a stud at Blue Moon Ranch, in his bull costume. (Alpacas aren't picky about their horns, I guess.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Marie-Antoinette Called And Wants Her Lumberjack Shirt Back Edition

I really don't need to say much more than the title here, do I?

It did turn out just like the pattern, puffy sleeves and all. I got the plaids to match down the front. And I made covered buttons in the same plaid, which were a lot of fun.I just have to decide if I can wear it, or if it's going to wear me.

Dave, Dave, Dave...

Dave Buhler, I know you're a regular blog reader here, and I know that you're very proud you picked a local agency, Love Communications, to do your campaign ads. But Dave, I was at the I-15 on ramp yesterday and saw one of your many (so very many) billboards--and again I just have to say something.

I'm not going to say anything about the mean-spiritedness creeping into the latest of your innumerable billboards because my pointing out your meanness would lower both of us. No, Dave, I'm going to talk about line breaks and their importance in a visual medium such as a billboard. (You have many, many billboards, you know, so this might be a helpful conversation.)

The billboard in question by the freeway shows your face (nice tie, by the way) and the words:
The Doer not
the Dreamer

I will ignore the fact that someone at Love Communications should have put a comma after "Doer," because people play pretty fast and loose with punctuation these days. But I can't get over feeling that your message would have had been clearer and easier for people streaming by it on the freeway to catch if it had been broken into two lines like this:
The Doer
not the Dreamer

See? You get one concept per line, nice and clear; you don't have your favorite word "Doer" subconsciously associated with a negative; and you can even say that the end of the line negates the need for the comma.

Line breaks matter Dave, just like font choice does, and random capitalization of nouns such as "Police" in another of your abundant billboards...but that's another story for another day. Remember, Dave, I respect your choices, from silly fonts to made-up words. (Blueprintman? Really?) I 'm only trying to help.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The National Geographic blog had a post about "Berserk Llama Syndrome" yesterday, which sounds like what it is. They kind of treat it like a joke, but one must remember alpacas and llamas are herd animals and that keeping one alone (like most llamas you see in peoples' backyards) makes them very unhappy, if not berserk.

2. If you've ever needed to send someone a "Sorry my wedding toast ruined your honeymoon" card, go to someecards.com. The "seasonal" category has gems like this:
3. As I said Wednesday, looking at shelter kitties made me sad. Then I found this program, the Snuggles Project, where you can knit, crochet, or sew a blanket for a shelter animal. Maybe that's a good way to use up my fabric scraps. (Although I can hear my grandmother saying, "I make quilts for people in need! Those cats can take care of themselves.")

4. This Ayn Rand quote has been on my mind this week (from Fransico's speech about money in Atlas Shrugged):

Did you get your money...by pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy.

Heh. That's nice to think about on a Friday at the ad agency. Good thing there's never much money leftover to not give me joy.

Maybe I Need A Bun Instead Of A Kitty

Because I could knit the bun a sweater and take it for walks!
(Cute Overload again. Good stuff this week.)

Dilemma Plus Kitty 'Tocks

Remember when I wanted a dog this time last year? Right when I was starting a new job and my co-habitation situation was spiraling out of control and I was making up imaginary boyfriends? Yeah, good times.

This year is much better, but I've been playing with the idea of a cat. I don't need one for the company--I have a very nice human for company now--but it would be, firstly, a kitty that would purr and be cute, and, secondly, a sort of "gravy" to a good situation. (Kind of like the [in]famous Crosby Stills Nash and Young song "Our House.") There are lots of adult cats (orange ones, too!) who need the quiet, indoor home I could give them, and I've grown up with cats so I know what they entail.

But. I know that taking on responsibility for something that's alive should have more motivation than song lyrics. And I don't really know how I would choose: I've been looking on Petfinder.com and think I need to see one in person, but I know that going to a shelter would be so paralyzing for me that I wouldn't be able to decide, because I couldn't take them all.

So maybe I need to wait and look at Cute Overload in the meantime, which has a fine 'Tocktober entry today:
Also, do you have "Our House" in your head now? I do.

Tuesday Project Roundup: If Sherlock Holmes Were A Mod, He'd Wear This Jacket Edition

The much-discussed jacket was completed down to its leather buttons and worn home Sunday night. It started as four yards of corduroy in my kitchen and ended up a nice cross between Holmes and French New Wave cinema heroine, I think: I'm really, really pleased with this. I like everything I make (I wouldn't make it otherwise) but the last thing I remember being this excited to finish and this delighted to wear was a summer party dress in May. It's a fantastic jacket. I feel like a spy in it. I feel like I could solve mysteries in London or Technicolor Paris in it.

Here's a good shot of the collar:
And a mysterious, spy-like shot of the red lining: I might have a revolver in the pocket (did I mention it has pockets?) or I might have to sit in a cafe and smoke, talking to my two lovers. This jacket could go either way.

Good Times In The Pit

Readers who aren't my family may not know that I was a musician for a long time--all through school, high school, and even a college degree. (What, sell out for advertising? Okay!) Back in the days of corn mazes and desperate crushes, I played in the pit orchestra for my high school's productions of 1776 and Guys and Dolls. While I have fond memories of the piccolo playing fife tunes in my ear and having a desperate crush on the senator from South Carolina in 1776, my favorite memory is from the Guys and Dolls run, where the Salvation Army chorus sings a number "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat." (Literally. That line is the entire chorus.)

My stand partner and the cellist and I were all friends, and we were walking out after the dress rehearsal discussing the performance. The cellist, Brian, said that he thought it was going to be good, and that he really liked the "Sit Down Boat" song.
Stand partner and I look at each other. "What song, B?" we asked.
"You know, the one where they sing 'Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down BOAT!"

And we had to laugh, because that is exactly what it sounded like the chorus was singing. I can only imagine what the pit orchestra sounded like. Good times with diction and high school music.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The stand collar on the jacket I'm making is SO dramatic that it comes up past my ears. (I'd take a picture but being on vacation means not having to really do my hair for a few days. Scary.) I'll be taking it off and cutting it down a little today, and hopefully finishing.

2. Corn mazes: Pro or con? The last time I went to one, I was in high school and had a desperate crush on one of the boys in the group, which made it fun (in a desperate high-school way). Would it be fun again? Or would I just feel old?

3. I have very carefully avoided offending my secret blog pal Dave Buhler since last Friday, but Dave, I'm sorry, I can't keep this to myself any longer--the font Love Communications used on your billboards makes me want to throw up.

4. Grayson, Primo, and Mimi (left to right):I swear they smile. Look at Primo.

These Things Go Through Your Head

I worked on my jacket most of yesterday (minus a trip out for more thread and some soup-making), which meant I had lots of time to just...think. Of course I have to think about sewing while I'm doing it, but pinning a seam at this point doesn't take all my attention, giving me time to come up with thoughts like these:

"Mankind has never really domesticated fish, not like cows or dogs. I wonder if it would work."

"It makes it easier for Jane Eyre to marry Rochester after she's come into her inheritance and has money of her own, so she's not utterly dependent. Pretty forward-thinking for 1847, Charlotte Bronte."

"I wonder if people buy Labradoodle dogs just for the name 'Labradoodle.' "

Some Related Information

It's my first day of vacation from my job and I realized it's my first anniversary there, too. I usually ignore all aspects of advertising in my posts because, well, I get enough of it. More than enough. But I thought I'd share this ad I came across yesterday for Amnesty International. I don't know what agency is responsible, but it's pretty brilliant (click to enlarge):
As I've been saying, how did a Communist country that has tax fraud as a capital offense ever get the Olympics? At least Amnesty International agrees with me. And has a good poster.

(Tomorrow: We'll return to some cat pictures and drop all this Serious Discussion.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Canceled

I didn't mention it here but I was fairly sick over the weekend, which meant that I didn't work on any project. (That's right, too sick to even knit. And "fairly sick" is my brave understatement.) But I'm recovered now and have the rest of the week off, which was originally going to be for a vacation to the Grand Canyon. The vacation didn't work out, though, so now I have three days in which to be crafty.

And because today feels like my Friday, here's an unrelated piece of information I read yesterday, from an AdAge article blaming sales of the video game Halo 3 for poor box office sales:

Within the first day of its launch, "Halo 3" players racked up more than 3.6 million hours of game play, and that number increased to 40 million hours by the end of the first week. For those keeping score, that's more than 4,500 years of continuous game play.

Wow. I mean, we all have hobbies, and I'm going to spend three days doing mine, but 4,500 collective years? Isn't that the length of human civilization? Do these gamers realize how many sweaters they could have knit instead?

I Figured It Out

I realized I had inadvertently hurt my anonymous blog commenter with my seeming endorsement of a political candidate Friday, and then I realized why: The commenter is Dave Buhler.

Sorry, Dave. But even you must admit it wasn't a very good picture.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I bought pants yesterday! This is big news because I spent the summer in skirts and dresses and didn't notice that I was slowly outgrowing all my jeans (hello, potatoes baked in heavy cream!). The Pants Summit will lead to a custom-tailored pair I'll sew, but the second meeting isn't until the end of the month, so I was relieved to find a pair to tide me over.

2.. This is a picture from the Salt Lake Tribune of the two mayoral candidates, Dave Bulher (l) and Ralph Becker (r). The look on Becker's face is priceless: "O rly?"I would vote for Ralph just for that look. Awesome.

3. Two separate people sent me this yesterday. I got the silk for the plaid wedding reception dress yesterday and I did this very same thing:

What 4 Yards Of Fabric Looks Like In My Apartment

Four yards of fabric is twelve feet, of course, and I had my back against the other wall of the living room to take this picture.

As they say in The Blues Brothers, "Lotta space in this mall."

Holidays in October

I read a lot of craft and knitting blogs, but I don't participate in any of the online craft community: I don't refer to myself as a "crafter," I don't participate in secret blog pal yarn swaps, I don't join online knit-alongs (KALS). But I do think this online event is worth mentioning, considering how happy I am with my sock progress: October is the month of Socktoberfest--a "monthlong celebration of socks" by knitters. Of course!

CuteOverload will tell us that October is actually 'Tocktober, a celebration of furry 'tocks like these:
And of course, there's Halloween. I need to come up with a costume soon if I'm going to make one, but, like every year, I'm stuck--unless I can make something like this (links to YouTube, with sound).

Tuesday Project Roundup: I Got My Mojo Workin' Edition

I got my sewing mojo back over the weekend and finished something the pattern called a minidress and I call a tunic (one must be able to actually sit in a dress).It's not represented well in the picture, but it's made out of very soft corduroy, which makes the sleeve ties feel like little goat ears.
Ahem. Moving right along to socks: It's almost one sock, in just a week. I'm making good speed compared with the last pair, which took about a month.

Cute!

Donkey! Moving lambs for a shepherd! Cute!

(From www.CuteOverload.com)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I have the day off! Ha ha ha ha ha!

2. What some commenters will be doing this weekend: Anonymous 1 will be at the PBR bull riding event tonight. Anonymous 2 (I assume) will be at the organ festival. Mr. Isbell will be (and I quote) sleeping.

3. I may be brave enough to try some sewing again this weekend. I've retreated to the sock-knitting all week, but I need some (warm) long-sleeved tops to wear to work. Also, I realized I won't be wearing skirts if the weather insists on getting colder (stupid weather), so I have to re-purpose four yards of skirt fabric.

4. To tie in to #2:

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: