Tuesday Project Roundup: Winter Projects, Just In Time For Summer

Here are pictures of that chunky knit cowl top I knit when it was so cold and rainy last week. I did get one good wear out of it and now it can wait until the fall.

And I've made progress with Thing #7 of the 29 Things: Knit Christmas stockings, starting with Toby's. Here's Toby's stocking.

He is not aware that it's a Christmas stocking, as those concepts are hard to explain to a cat, but he does know that it's wooly and he's allowed to lay on it.

He also is allowed to help with photo shoots--actually, we can't stop him.

For Your Summer Cocktails, Now That It Is Summer-like

I've been reading about an elderflower liquer in my magazines for a while now, and it's finally available in the liquor stores here! (Well, in the new wine store, at least.) I'd been subsituting the non-alcoholic IKEA elderflower concentrate ("Fladersaft") in the recipes I'd read calling for the liquer, but this


has nothing on this:

Buy it for the bottle alone, and feel like your apartment is really full of French antiques and witty people enjoying a full bar whenever you open the cupboard. The site is nice, too--the St. Germain Cocktail with sparkling wine and soda water is going to be the new fancy drink around here.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The summer solstice is this weekend. Perhaps it will actually be WARM this summer. I'm not holding my breath, though.

2. I have another work project to share: Provo Craft's microsite for a Cricut promotion. More exclamation points that I've ever used in my life contained herein. (I've also written the blog posts to date.)

3. Speaking of blogs, Mr. Isbell has one now: animaaeturnus.blogspot.com. It is geekier than I am really comfortable with--and I just heard him talk about the langugaes used in Star Wars (Galactic Basic and Huttese!)--but it shows off his mad model-painting skills. His blog name is "Lord Captain Valentine;" I call him "Cap'n."

Oversleeping + Busyness = Picture Post

(From Married to the Sea. Click if you need it bigger.)

Because I Know You Were Wondering

I finished the sweater discussed yesterday and am wearing it today. I'll have to wait to block it before I put it away for the summer, but I got a sweater in a week and a chance to wear it--not too bad.

Tuesday Project Roundup: My Window Of Opportunity Is Rapidly Closing

I blame the rain for this project. I was going absolutely crazy by Tuesday, so started looking for a summer sweater to knit, despite my history of finishing summer sweaters in time for fall. Then I saw an extra-chunky project that could, in theory, be finished over the weekend and worn while it's still cool and rainy.

(This is not me, as I did NOT finish over the weekend. The pattern's from this book.)

I'm not sure why anyone needs a turtleneck with no sleeves made out of really thick, really warm wool, but it looked cool, gave me somewhere to put my nervous energy, and the yarn was on sale.

I'm so close to being done, but I only have about two more days before the weather is going to turn nice again and I won't be able to wear it until October. I'd better get knitting.

Say It With Poems

This poem was featured on The Writer's Almanac last Thursday in the middle of the most emotionally difficult week in recent memory, so it was nice to read. I will try to keep it in mind this week:

Horses At Midnight Without A Moon

by Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. If you like 30 Rock and you liked The Muppet Show, you'll enjoy this blog post that compares the two. The pictures of parallel characters are great.

2. The gardening is going well. The tomatoes in the long bed got staked Saturday (the last day we've been able to work in the yard; stupid rain) and we planted cabbages and still more tomatoes.
3. Good times with student writing workshop commentary.

Diagrams Of Awesomeness

I meant to add this Venn diagram to my work post yesterday--"How to be Happy in Business":
(Click for big. You can buy a poster here.)

And, while posting Venn diagrams, I really like this one about social media:
This one you can get on a t-shirt.

What I Do At Work (Besides Ride On Private Jets)

A couple of sites I worked on the last two months are finally live:

• A Novell partner site (I did this freelance, actually; then got a job. All the Microsoft wasn't for nothing!)
• The Franklin Covey Mission Statement Builder

(I've done more than this, of course. Have I mentioned the work that required a trip on a private jet?)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Half-Finished Projects Are The Best

I had to scrap the yellow pin dot dress (the fabric wasn't working with the pattern and it was awfully yellow), and while putting it in the "fail bin" I noticed a chambray dress I'd scrapped two summers ago. I put that one away because I couldn't figure out the placket; but in the last two years I've made plenty of plackets like that so I finished it up over the weekend:
I can't place the pattern exactly--maybe early 70's? Here's the envelope:
It's not the best dress I've ever made but it will be fine to wear to the farmer's market. I'm liking chambray a lot lately: I've bought trousers and a shirt made out of it (yay disposable income!), and now I have this. The fabric reminds me of The Grapes of Wrath.

Toby Is Two!

We know Toby was born in June, because he was nine months old last March when we adopted him. I arbitrarily picked June third as his birthday because it was the same day of the month as mine, making it easy to remember.

Well, June 3 came this year and I was out of town--I missed his birthday! Fortunately, cats don't really keep track. I did bring him presents Sunday: a new scratching post and a crinkle tube that he loves.

It's a pretty dark photo, but I'm sure Toby likes how it makes him look more like a vicious hunter hiding in the jungle (tunnel).

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I didn't mean to sound as if I was complaining about the ride on a private jet yesterday; the booties just struck me as funny. (To be clear, I was complaining about Unprofessional Dude.) Maybe it was a "the rich aren't different from you and me" moment.

2. Another baby at the alpaca ranch:

3. That's all I have. I'm dragging today.

Questions I Pondered During The Business Trip

1. If the owner of the conglomerate we were hired by can afford a private jet, can't he afford to have the jet's carpets cleaned? If so, then why would we all have to wear booties over our shoes while in the plane?

2. Is it really professional to point out various landmark places of worship in the Salt Lake Valley as we fly over them and talk about doing religious work in each one of them? Was it really only this guys righteousness that was keeping the plane in the air? Because it was starting to feel like it. (This guy wasn't with our company, fortunately; but professionalism FAIL.)

Anyway, glad to be back.

That Business Trip

...is happening right now, so I'm using Blogger's scheduled posting function to tell you this. Someone didn't want me to leave:

Back this afternoon and posting live tomorrow.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Nightwear

I always thought the concept of nightwear was just odd--clothing you change into especially for sleeping? But as I head into 30, it's starting to sound sane and adult, especially matching nightwear. So I started by making a robe: Pajamas to follow. Then some sort of increased maturity.

World Got You Down?

Upset by the latest news? Feeling blue? I have two words for you: Baby alpaca! The first cria of the year was born at Blue Moon Ranch Saturday:

Friday Unrelated Information

1. This weekend I will see Star Trek and go to the Neko Case concert at Red Butte and get a haircut AND buy some bark mulch for the yard. Big weekend!

2. Here is an article about "Caring for Your Introvert" from the Atlantic quite some time ago. I think everyone I know needs to read this.

3. Something silly from Married to the Sea (click for big):

I Got Nothing

Between not knowing what day of the week it is, and being busy, and obsessing over finding a good travel dress to wear on a business trip (my first business trip!), I am just drinking coffee and looking at pictures on the internet in the mornings, not composing anything good.

I'll have a list tomorrow.

Schubert Weather

This partly cloudy end of May with the honey locusts in bloom reminds of when I first discovered the Schubert Cello Quintet eight or nine years ago (and blackberries in cream-top yogurt, and the difficulties of sad people, but that's not what we're talking about today). I had to listen to it twice this weekend while sewing, and you should listen to it, too. The second movement, the loveliest, is below, but the whole thing is worth an hour of your time.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Long Weekend

Even with Mr. Isbell being gone all week and me having Monday off, I really didn't accomplish much this weekend. When I try to think of what I did, all I can come up with is "Make blueberry muffins."

I did sew a little, because for the first time in about 15 years I've decided I want a pair of pajamas again--with a matching robe. This probably ties in with wanting to have long hair, although watching all that Mad Men again doesn't hurt, either. And I decided it was time to improve on what's described at 1:40 below:



"Team Building Exercise 99, yeah!"

Memorial Day Now Memorialized With Furniture Sales; Sorry, Veterans

You can read about the holdiay's history as Decoration Day here if you'd like, or you can read this Carl Sandberg poem that I always think of:

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work -

I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Why is Dick Cheney still talking? Why are there news articles about how he's still talking? Please stop talking now, Dick.

2. The Writer's Almanac tells me it's the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who hated writing Sherlock Holmes stories:
"To get out of writing Holmes tales, he asked Strandfor higher and higher prices for his stories, ridiculously high, hoping they would turn him down. But they went ahead and paid him anything he asked."

3. Finally, Lego sets that adults can leave out without feeling silly: Frank Lloyd Wright models! Read more here.

May Is National Bike Month

I've finally started riding my bike to work! I know I wanted to be less wimpy about riding in cooler weather (Thing #9), but I started my new job in April and was just too shy to wheel my bike through the office right away. (It didn't help my shyness to learn that one coworker is a fancy bike racer and one boss rode/ran/swam the Hawaii Ironman last year.)

But now I've started riding and it's significantly easier to pedal every time, which is good, and all the roadies at work are friendly, and I'm getting waves from passersby again. Velo bon!

The Attack Of The Cute

I had to be on an East-coast client call early this morning, and Toby did not like that one bit. In his cat mind, if I'm up earlier than usual it should be to lavish him with even more attention and monologues in the kitty voice. So he did his best to distract me with races, squeaks, surprise attacks, and most distracting of all, the Cute Roll:

Tuesday Project Roundup: Christmas Stockings Are Not Holding My Interest

To be fair, I haven't been working on them very much because of the yard and graduation parties and eating outside on the new patio. But these caught my eye, despite my knowing I haven't worn any summer knits I've made in the past:

I really like the navy one, but the directions appear to be in Finnish and would have to be mail ordered and Christmas stockings are easy and I'm not knitting that much anyway. (I'm not sewing much, either. Because have you noticed? It's WARM outside!)

If I do decide to knit either of these, I guess I could get enough yarn to make them long-sleeved. Because I probably wouldn't finish until fall anyway.

Ninety Degress!

I think the whole office will be restless today.

There is some treasure hidden in the heart of summer
everyone remembers now, and they can't be sure
the lives they live in will discover it.

(From "Santa Barbara Road," Robert Hass.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Things I have done at work this week (unrelated projects): Researched the difference between a multi-level marketing scheme and a pyramid scheme; used more exclamation points writing one web site than I have in my entire professional career; and learned about the growing mainstream market for total-body cleanses. My job is awesome!

2. Speaking of advertising, let's watch some Precious Roy Home Shopping Network (from the most brilliant show ever to appear on MTV, Sifl & Olly):


3. And to end the week on a more highbrow note, I came across an Elizabeth Bishop quote that, for me, defines the reason literature exists: "Since we do float on an unknown sea I think we should examine the other floating things that come our way carefully; who knows what might depend on it."

Science Fiction Plants!

Last night I discovered that ivy has pushed through the outside bricks, into the walls, and is trying to sprout through the baseboard in the bedroom. And that is thoroughly creepy. Not because I think that ivy will suddenly come shooting in to attack us in our beds, but because the ivy has been slowly, slowly working its way in and is probably not going to stop now. (I am so glad I rent, by the way.)

Something that inexorable and vegetative reminded me of a couple of science fiction stories--there's one by Bradbury in S is For Space about mushroom kits that kids order and start growing; the mushrooms then turn out to be a weird alien life that takes over the world and smothers all the kids' parents. And Ursula LeGuin wrote "Vaster Than Empires, and More Slow" which I don't recall as well, but is about a planet whose plant life slowly strangles the explorers, I think. (I mostly remember that the title comes from Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress": My vegetable love should grow/ Vaster than empires, and more slow.)

So maybe if I hadn't read so much science fiction I wouldn't be nervous about walking by the spot where I saw the ivy pushing in. I think the landlord can deal with this...

It's Almost Time To Read Dandelion Wine Again

This poem was on the Writer's Almanac this morning and it reminded me of the first long chapter of Dandelion Wine where Douglas realizes he's alive (well, mortal; he's 11 in the book so obviously he's been alive and known about it for some time).

Anyway. Good old Mark Strand gives us another lovely poem:

My Name

Once when the lawn was a golden green
and the marbled moonlit trees rose like fresh memorials
in the scented air, and the whole countryside pulsed
with the chirr and murmur of insects, I lay in the grass,
feeling the great distances open above me, and wondered
what I would become and where I would find myself,
and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant
that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard
my name as if for the first time, heard it the way
one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far off
as though it belonged not to me but to the silence
from which it had come and to which it would go.

Tuesday Project Roundup: What I've Been Doing Instead Of Sewing

The short answer: Buying things for the yard. (And working in it, too, but mostly buying things.)

Mr. Isbell expanded the front stoop into a patio and I bought some chairs:
(And a new hose! and hose storage!)

And I bought a lot of marigolds and potting soil:

I did finally get the yellow dot fabric from two weeks ago cut out last night, but someone decided to impede progress as much as he could:
Look at that stubborn face. He wasn't about to move.

Let's Talk About The Twilight Movie

This movie made it onto the Netflix queue because I was considering the books for trashy summer reading (along with Anne McCaffery and some Ian Fleming) and I thought the movie might give me an idea of how bad the books might be.

And let me tell you, it was bad. Not so much bad dialogue, or a bad plot (well...), but bad for teen girls all over America: How did a book that teaches you that it's ok to throw all your love at someone who will hurt you--who might even kill you--become a worldwide bestselling romance? Because in real life the person you're throwing your love at isn't a sparkly vampire; he's just going to give you a broken arm. Or worse.

So I don't think I need to read the books--I'll spare myself that frustration (and spare Mr. Isbell the rants about women perpetuating these behavior patterns). (Seriously, Woman Author and Women Director and Producers? You think that because a secondary character asks a boy to prom that this makes your book/movie modern and empowering? Wow.)

The movie ended with a Radiohead song, though. I didn't see that coming.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. How cool are these Blue Note album covers from the 60's? Even the names of the albums are cool:


You can see a lot more here on what looks to be a Japanese site.

2. Seriously, I can't take the coolness. If anyone browsing in a thrift store finds any old jazz albums, I plan to buy a turntable someday. Hint.

3. I stumbled across an essay on perfume that does as good a job as anything can describing a smell, in the purplest prose imaginable. Which is a good thing, because it gives us paragraphs like this:
"The best way to describe Bigarade is to say, first, that it is a vast smell. And second, that it smells like a human being in the summer in a complex weather system; whoever this person is, we can smell them, they're showered but they have a smell all the same, and the lovely, intricate smells of summer are all around and clinging to their skin, and also it seems to have just rained because there's the scent of rainwater on pavement and perhaps a bit of ozone, plus some flower petals and grass that got washed into the puddle they're stepping in. "

Happy Brithday, Famous Composers

Today is the birthday of Johannes Brahms AND of Piotr Tchaikovsky. Poor Brahms was in love with Clara Schumann his whole life, which was tricky because Robert Schumann was his good friend and mentor, and poor Tchaikovsky was gay at a time when that was illegal in Russia. (Hell, it still might be.)

I recommend listening to the Brahms string sextet #1, which I found online here (pretty good, but find the Berlin Octet recording). And for Tchaikovsky, you can watch The Music Lovers, but then you'll be depressed, so you'd better just put on the 1812 Overture.

Entertaining, Yet Morbid

I found this in my online reading yesterday: A site with the premise, "If we started a movie on the day you were born, and stretched it over your lifespan, this is where you'd be in that movie."

You enter your birthday, how long you expect to live, and pick a movie (Ghostbusters, 2001, Star Wars, etc.), then the results tell you where you are in that movie, if that movie were your life.

Apparently, I'm in that long fantastic scene in 2001 where Dave is jogging in the round part of the spaceship. I don't know how that helps me with my Wednesday at all, but such is the internet.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Working On Thing #7

Thing #7 from the 29 Things is "Knit Christmas stockings, starting with Toby's." I got the yarn a few weeks ago and finally started last week. I'm to the heel now but, since it looks like a stripey tube, I'll wait on a picture.

Mr. Isbell saw my yarn colors (orange*, turquoise, and a weird green) and said, "Those aren't Christmas colors!" But they are:
*Toby gets the orange one, of course.

The Map Of Library Cats

The internet has produced yet another neat thing to look at--thank you, internet! This is an interactive map of all the known library cats in the world. The main page gives you the summary, and then you can click on the state of the country for more particulars. For example, a library in Huntsville up north had a cat named Dewey ten years ago.

Now the internet needs to come up with a map of all the bookstore cats in the world.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Happy May Day to everyone enjoying an eight-hour work day today. International Workers Day "is the commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886, when Chicago police fired on workers during a general strike for the eight hour day" (although someone did throw a bomb at the police first, apparently. But still.).

2. If I were ever going to knit anything for my brother, this would be it:
I actually think these are machine-knit anyway, but check them out on the collector's Flickr page of "promotional knit beer sweaters from the 70s and 80s."

3. And more music to finish the week--this is a blast from my past that I suddenly wanted to listen to, and then I was 15 again and riding around with my friend in the summer, going to malls.

Songs Used To Good Effect In Popular Television Series

In addition to shoes, I bought the first season of Mad Men with my first paycheck. Watching it again has been as enthralling as watching it the first time, but since I know to expect the sexism I don't get so worked up about it--a win-win!

I watched the final episode last night and it closes with the main characters' marriage (still) on the rocks, with "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." And listening to it, I thought, "Man, those are some bitter lyrics. But such a pretty tune. And wow, does that really work well to close the first season."

So here is some early Bob Dylan for your listening pleasure:

So True

I think this has been making the rounds, but I had to post it anyway: It's a fake "internet age writing course description and syllabus," from McSweeney's, and it makes writers everywhere feel very smug and vindicated. The whole thing is here (check out "Week 7: Blogging"--not so smug now!) and a sample is below:

Course Description

As print takes its place alongside smoke signals, cuneiform, and hollering, there has emerged a new literary age, one in which writers no longer need to feel encumbered by the paper cuts, reading, and excessive use of words traditionally associated with the writing trade. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era focuses on the creation of short-form prose that is not intended to be reproduced on pulp fibers.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Types Of Dots

Aspirin dot:


And pin dot:

The aspirin dot is a knit that I've made into a t-shirt dress (I want to wait to get a modeled shot) and the pin dot will be a little 60's shift soon.

And then I think I need to really work on the quilt that's languishing at my parents' house, because the closet is getting so packed with clothing that it's going to becoming super-dense and turn into a supernova. It's that full.

Let's Talk About My Hair

In the past two years my hair has gone from being this curly:

to what could only be called "wavy" if you're feeling generous. My hair has betrayed me, and now I don't know what to do with it.

In the winter I cut it even shorter, hoping for a Jean Seberg look:
But, in the words of the wife in a Hemingway short story*, "I get so tired of looking like a boy."

It's been nearly 10 years since I had long hair; I didn't do anything special with my hair when it was long (although it was curly then, AHEM, HAIR); and I know I would hate growing it out. But. I find myself staring at pictures of braids and long glossy hair and echoing that Hemingway character:
"I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel. . . . And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes."

In other words, I don't know what I want.

*The story is "Cat in the Rain," from In Our Time.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. This article in the NY Times made me smile: A 67-year-old trying to set a new land speed record essentially bought a JET and put wheels on it. He'll be the driver when they try to set the record--800 mph.

2. Did you know Audrey Tatou (of Amelie) is starring as Coco Chanel in a new French movie? I will have to see that. For now, you can see the trailer here--with subtitles provided by a high-school student of French. (The official English trailer isn't out yet.)

3. Here is Toby in a bag. Just because.

Robins: What Do They Do All Winter, Anyway?

Yesterday evening was so pretty; all the robins were singing. I've noticed them in the early mornings, too, which is my favorite part of late spring. So here is a poem about one bird starting to sing early, by our friend Wallace Stevens:

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow . . .
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier mâché . . .
The sun was coming from outside.

That scrawny cry—it was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

Potato-Growing Methods To Celebrate Earth Day

I've always thought that potatoes need a lot of space, but look at what the internet has shown me: I can grow potatoes vertically!

The full story is here, along with a lot of step-by-step photos. Of course, I don't have room to store my harvest in the apartment...I suppose I could dig a root cellar.

Tuesday Project Roundup: The Inevitable Fail

When I wasn't arguing with my boyfriend (sorry, hon) or yelling at the neighbors (sorry, lady) this last week, I was finishing a sweater that turned out too big. (Sorry, yarn.) I wanted it to look like this girl's version but something happened with the neckline and it ended up looking like this when it was done blocking:

Oh well, I did finish two other sweaters this season that fit and that I wear, so that's a record anyway. This one was pushing my luck.

And now it's on to dresses--polka-dot ones.

As My Old Roommate Would Say, "Bad Form."

So Mr. Isbell and I got into a domestic dispute Sunday morning, and in the middle of it I noticed that, instead of going to the public open space two blocks west, a neighbor woman had decided to play with her dog on our lawn--complete with a stack of Frisbees and the dog running into the flowerbed and planted garden.

I lost it:



And then of course I felt bad, because I was really mad about the argument that was going on and I could have told her to get lost in a nicer way. Poor lady had no idea what she was in for...

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I've been checking out Nerd Boyfriend, "a shopping guide and style blog for the fashionably nerdy male." I mostly like it for the old pictures. And I also like nerds. And Fasuto Coppi's sweater on today's post.

2. Here's an essay on the case for memorizing poems, which included this quote: “If one is delayed in a bus terminal, or sitting in a foxhole, it’s wonderful to have an inner anthology to say over, yet again, in one’s mind.” Except I don't think the foxhole argument will mean anything to the youth of today--not really making a case there, author.

3. It's the birthday of Isak Dineson, aka Karen Blixen, who wrote Out of Africa, the opening of which is the best opening of any book ever, in my opinion.

Toby's Latest Trick: Impeding Progress

He comes running when he hears me start to make the bed and promptly stretches out on it. He's also a fan of sitting on the laptop in the morning, although I think that's because he just likes the warmth from it:

Happy Birthday

...to Leonardo da Vinci, Bessie Smith, Emma Thompson, and my mom! Here is a song for her, with the big disclaimer that she is NOT 64. I just thought it was a good description of her life right now, what with the parts about gardening and going for a ride and having my dad around.



Unrelated: Yellow Submarine looks completely terrifying.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Easter Dress

So I made myself an Easter dress for the first time in about ten years. My mom used to make me fantastic ones when I was little, and later I'd go shop for something, but the only point of an Easter dress is wearing it on Easter, and the only place to wear something on Easter is church, and I decided about the same time I stopped getting new Easter dresses that the only part of Lutheranism I liked was Bach. But I digress.

This is impossible to photograph on a cloudy morning but it looks very nice on--it's navy dotted swiss over a plain navy lining, using the same pattern as last week.

And what's going on in knitting? Well, look who's helping my yellow sweater block:

"uuh, mama, this sweater is damp..."

If Only The Background Were Turquoise

If it were, I would buy this and put it on the wall next to the Bernina:

(The larger size is still for sale on 20x200.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Sorry I didn't post yesterday--the internet was down at the apartment and I was busy at work (!), talking to clients (!!) and being creative (!!!). (Seriously, I would have liked this job just for the paycheck. But it's actually really fun!)

2. Kottke.org linked to the origin of "steal my thunder" this week:
In 1704, playright John Dennis invented a new method of producing the sound of thunder during a play. Dennis' play was unsuccessful, but his thunder technique was soon borrowed by another production, leading Dennis to exclaim:

Damn them! They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder.

3. Look, it's the alpaca Easter bunny!
My Easter plans include listening to Bach's St. Matthew Passion tonight. I have a friend who always listens to Parsifal on Good Friday for the "Good Friday Music" in it, but it's Bach for me.

Reading The Writer's Almanac Again

I got caught up on The Writer's Almanac site yesterday and saw this poem from last week, which suits the weather and the sort of watery, in-transition feelings from the last few months that are not quite dispersed yet:

Larry Smith, "In Early Spring"

Road catkins, russet and tan, let the
wind sweep over them as dusk
seeps in along the lake,
and I pass road puddles
swelling to ponds, mirroring
the sky's own silveriness.
At the railroad tracks seven geese
veer off and set down in a field
so that only their necks
speak for them, telling us all
to go on while they rest
by the barn. Today a man
asked me if I were depressed,
and I looked up and smiled.
No more than these geese or catkins
as light falls around them, no
more than those pine boughs
lifting in the wind—just so,
life goes on.

Tuesday Project Roundup: "You're Just Happier In A Dress"

My first week of work was notable for lots of friendliness and busyness--and for not knowing what the hell to wear every day. It's a little dressier than the the last place and the weather was not cooperating, so I tried the t-shirt and blazer combo for four days. But Friday I said to myself, "This is bunk, I'm wearing a dres," and Mr. Isbell said, "You're just happier in a dress. There's a sparkle in your eye when you wear one." And it's true.

So I finished a new one over the weekend and wore it yesterday and I was indeed happier. It was also a lot easier to get ready.

I used the fabric from Japan (finally), and this pattern, which looks to be from the'60s. I made the left version but without any sleeves, because the weather has to warm up someday. And I'm trying to have the right version with the neck ruffle finished for next week.

It's Monday

And sometimes Toby has a hard time getting up an hour earlier with me. He usually has to have a quick nap around 8:00, which he's doing here on the back of the couch in the sun.


Updated after morning internet reading to add: Iowa, you rock. I haven't been getting the paper daily or reading my news sites at work, so this was a happy surprise.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Did you know that you can watch all of the Carl Sagan Cosmos series online for free? I discovered it on Hulu while searching for episodes of The A-Team (also available online).

2. Did you know the actor who played the leader of the A-Team, "Hannibal" Smith, was George Peppard, aka the male lead in Breakfast at Tiffany's? I missed these things in 1985.

3. Behold, via Married to the Sea:

Not Appropriate For Client Meetings

I bought this shirt when it was on sale a few weeks ago and I really, really want to wear it today. That would probably be frowned on, though.

Feel Free To Start Any Time, Spring

Now that it's April, I can post the part from The Wasteland that everyone knows and uses to complain about the weather:

APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.