Clapotis #4 (in progress)

Think my knitting productivity will be going down, once I switch to a job that requires I drive to work (instead of public transport-ing it.  This will be the first time in my life that I have a car.  Until now, I've managed to get by without one, by picking jobs/locations where I didn't need one.  It's cool.  One of these years, I might even get a TV.  Or a smart phone.  I've already had my arm twisted into climbing back onto Facebook --- but I am not Liking anything or anything like that, Mark Zuckerberg, you find a different way to make money off me and my friendships.)

Couldn't help but snap this photo.  Bright + bright + bright, anyone?

I told a coworker that I'd teach her to knit.  But then I handed in my notice!  So I am knitting the scarf for her instead.  This is another Clapotis in Tosh Sock in the Terra colorway.  I adore this yarn in this colorway (clearly, if I am not only going Unselfish Crafter, but doing an exact duplicate)

My coworker (a MD, naturally) told me my legs look jaundiced when I wear these tights.  I have to agree.  I sometimes trick myself into thinking that if i wear them with boots, that makes it better, but maybe it just makes it worse.  That's OK though.  They're still one of my wardrobe essentials.

Hope you're all having a good weekend!

New and new

So, next month I will be moving and starting a new job.  This past week has been a flurry of announcements, trying to wrap things up, and working with my team to figure out a transition plan.  I am incredibly sad as I always am when I leave a place behind -- it's my way of letting go, this sadness.  Even if I know what is coming next will be great and exciting, first there is the sadness.

When I get home at night, all I want to do is knit.  Or, as has been the case in the past 2 weeks, crochet.  I find myself burrowing into crafting both as a respite from the world around me - my one truly peaceful place to go - but also as a means to make, make, make as I have not yearned to make for months now.  I've noticed that whenever I am in transition in life, I begin desiring new things.  Clothing, accessories, home decor, shoes, fabric and yarn, wall decorations.  I rummage through folders of photographs to identify candidates for printing and framing or taping up on walls.  I start quilts, I finish quilts.  I troll eBay and Etsy.  There are indulgence purchases that really take it one step beyond indulgence and into unnecessary.  Or "unnecessary" as is defined in my life as present, as I find that word a moving target as I go through life.

I used to think that the uncertainty of transition or limbo caused me to focus on the more superficial aspects of life - as though, hey, I can control what I wear, oh lookie, sparkly distractions!  While there is something to that, I also think that the materials possessions we surround ourselves with are a reflection, to a certain extent, of our inner world.  And when we change, it can be nice to invest energy in external manifestations of that change.  Especially if we are makers and DIYers, these external manifestations of change carry a whole additional level of symbolism and meaning.  Not to mention the soothing rhythms and joy of creativity and working with our hands.

Snippets

We grilled this bounty up a couple of weeks ago.  "Hot fennel ... HOT FENNEL."  Not sure why they didn't believe me that it would be piping hot off the grill, but interestingly, fennel tastes pretty good barbecued!  In case you ever want to try.

What a couple of weeks it's been!  I'm pretty tired -- and Sigrid, I think I jumped the gun on you, went and finished up my dress :-/.  I did one of those things where I went back to my parent's place and brought an UFO with me, and purposefully didn't bring a change of clothes to force myself to engage in the UFO --> FO process.  Which is why, last night, at 10:18 PM, I was not in bed as I'd hoped but clipping threads.  Ah well.  I shall photograph it in its currently slightly wrinkled glory this weekend, hopefully, and show it off to you all soon after.

Is it August already?  I can't believe that.  I had some mental deadlines for myself that were set to start this month, and I think change may be in the air ...

Slow progress

Apologies for the radio silence!  Life's been busy recently.  I've done more socializing in the last 4 days than I do in about 4 weekends ... and just as I've been hankering for a deep dive into some sewing projects!  (Knitting's felt too ho-hum lately, after my great binge this winter and long hiatus this spring)

Coffee with a friend's friend in the Mission
Renegade!
Dinner with a friend, we've been batting ideas around about a film he wants to produce
Launch party for a coworker's friend's linen and bedding line

Hope you all are doing well and enjoying the lingering days of summer!

This weekend ...

Dove into some Sparkly sewing ...

Had friends over for tea and sweets ...

May Photographs and MMM Reflections

I have had an on-and-off love affair with the concept behind taking a photograph daily, but I am trying it up again. To ease off the pressure, I decided to just start on a random day in April instead of making an event out of it and then psyching myself out. I keep overthinking photography and how my photos are never what I want them to be, but since I've recently been trying to turn off [or at least block out] that internal censor, instead I have been focusing on what aspects of my life, my neighborhood, my home, my day-to-day that I would want to remember in ten years. Because I can still look back on photographs from 3 years ago and recall where I was and what I was doing, and I like that.


A brief collage of some of the highlights from May. Clockwise, from top:

1. Mom and dad's visit at the Arboretum
2. Don't drink the water! [I kept forgetting when I brushed my teeth so finally my darling roommate wrote and illustrated a little note that she promptly placed in the sink. I burst out laughing when I saw it]
3. 'Dude, want to play show and tell?' subtitled 'I went to grad school and all I got was this chaote squash growing wild in my locker ...'
4. Strand Bookstore, New York
5. Snuggie Queen!
6. Picnic
7. Koreana Redux

In mimicking with the photography style of many crafting bloggers, I've noticed I tend to do a lot of still life's, a lot of close-ups, a lot of empty space filled by half of an object. And while that's cool, I'd also like to be more versatile, so I'm trying to challenge myself to take more panoramic photos [hence the ones top left and right].


Me-Made-May-Lite reflections. In my not-so-representative sampling of three crafters, it seems like tee's were a major area of RTW clothing that MMM'ers are taking a critical look at, in terms of places in their wardrobe that they can cull and replace with handmade items. I have to agree with this one, especially since I have a medium-ish number of quirky tees which I adore, but really only wear 2 of them all the time. Since I am loath to get rid of them [why is it so hard with clothes and fabric?], maybe I will refashion them into pillows and such?

Also, lots of talk around creating wardrobes that work together - most in favor of minimal wardrobes, since as many have pointed out you actually need far fewer clothes than you think! I have to say I kind of like the mix-and-match factor and will guiltily admit that I like to keep a variety of clothing on hand because what I love most about clothing is the ability to create new combinations. That said, I think it's time to diversify out of neutral t's and white button-downs and into more interesting blouses. So I've signed up for Ali's sew-along to motivate myself to whip out a couple decent blouses. And because I am not feeling like mucking around too much, I will probably use this pattern and this one, at least to start ...

Diffusing the Crafting Innovation; MMM-L 20-22

Have you heard of the theory of diffusion of innovation? Basically it posits that there is a pattern to how new ideas, trends, technology ... innovations, in essence ... are spread. In public health we'd call this "social norms" and "changing the discourse around social norms." [OK, I call it this. I like to make up my own jargon.] But the basic idea is that there are some people at the very edge of a new innovation, the ones leading the charge, coming up with new ideas, etc., and they're the innovators. The earliest people to catch on to the new idea are the early adopters, followed by the early majority, etc. People who study this claim that if you can get ~18% of the population to catch on to an innovation [i.e. somewhere between the early adopters and the early majority], then it will eventually filter out to the rest of the population. It's the tipping point, but in social science, not Malcolm Gladwell, terms.


I've been thinking about this recently because I'm wondering what it would take for DIY and crafting to "go mainstream." Hit that tipping point. And trying to figure out where we currently are on this curve. I mean, wouldn't it be cool if DIY and crafting and handmade returned to hold a role in everyday life? It could be a pipe dream, but maybe not - I mean, look at where the sustainable agriculture, organic food, local food, slow food, local business movement is! Ten years ago you'd say "Michael who?" if Michael Pollan's name came up. So how can we get more people on board with this? Do you think we're currently innovators, or have we moved out to the early adopter phase?

One difference between food and crafting, of course, is that crafting can be more involved. Well, debatable. Cooking certainly is an involved process, but people can also support the movement by buying organic or going to farmers markets. But crafters have something similar in Etsy and indie/handmade fashion labels, no? They give people a way to participate in the handmade movement without having to make things by hand themselves, although ideally I'd love to see a general return to the "make do," improvised, fix it don't trash it, mentality of times past.

I'm guessing that the first step in my own life would be to talk about the value of handmade, starting with every time I get a compliment on a piece of clothing or bag that I've made. Most of the time I don't even tell people I made it! I don't know why I don't say anything, I think I'm a little shy and hate to draw more attention to myself. But maybe if I really want to get more people on board with the DIY culture, it's time to step out of that shell a bit.

Enough of that. On to the outfits, lady!

Day 20.

Handmade dress. Since it wasn't quite warm enough to wear the dress on its own, I improvised. When I make something new, I like to wear it all the time, unless it really doesn't work for me, in which case it never gets worn and is eventually repurposed or donated.

Day 21.

Handmade skirt. It's funny, even though I find this skirt hard to match because of the difference in value between the deep blue denim and the white background of the pockets, I somehow wind up wearing it all the time. I think that's because it's an in-between seasons skirt that can stretch from early spring to early summer and then early fall into warm-ish winter days, and I don't have very many of those. Note to self: wardrobe gap!

Day 22.

Handmade scarf and underwear. Sigh, I hate to admit this ... but I miss my RTW clothing! Which is really funny because some of my favorite skirts are my handmade summer skirts ... and yet ... and yet? I guess I don't like living off them entirely, like I get bored? Or maybe I feel like wearing a lot of dresses and have only made myself 3 of those? Or maybe I haven't outgrown my teenage rebellious ways? Or maybe photographing my outfits each day has pointed out a certain ... sameness ... to them, like proportion and cut, which is pushing me to want to mix it up except I can't because most of my handmade clothing looks, well, a little bit the same. A-line skirts and all.


Had a really nice, relaxing afternoon in the park. I sat on a bench and called my good friend in CA and she caught me up on all the gossip in our circle of friends [we went to high school together, although Kat and I also did college together and then lived ~1 mile apart in SF for 2 years]. I watched a group of students about my age throw a football around, a group of 3 males play whiffle ball in the baseball diamond and it cracked me up to see the "outfielder" on his cell phone, trying to make one-handed catches. And then I lay in the grass and started Peter Hessler's River Town. I wish I had read this before I did my year in China. At the time I had heard of it but refrained because I was jealous -- who was this foreigner writing about China to such acclaim? But 2 pages into the book it is very clear that authoring such a book has nothing to do with whether you are a foreigner or not, but rather whether you have an open heart, a watchful eye, and a willingness to ask questions. They say envy points you to the directions that you want to grow, and I certainly wish I could write about China the way he does. But, you know, mine is a different story to tell. Right now I'm just absorbing it, dissecting it, gaining inspiration, and letting it all percolate ...

MMM-L, Days 1, 2

Day 1.

Ah, yes. This was me on a chill Saturday afternoon. Do note that my skirt matches my bedding. The skirt is the one seen here [and actually, now that I look at it, that whole outfit is the exact same as the one I modeled 2 years ago. I'm not sure what this says ... except that my tastes are not so very fickle and that I'm really starting to hone in the on the pieces that I adore, and shifting everything else to the refashion/Goodwill pile?]


Day 2.

... Could it be? ...

A bone fide, out-and-out handmade dress?

Like, she didn't just slap 2 rectangles of fabric onto an existing shirt to make a 'shirt dress' but an actual dress??

Holy crap I was excited when I finished this and it fit. Princess seams! Curved yoke! Top stitching! Petite waist adjustment! Pockets (x2)! Chucking Simplicity's recommended 6" of positive ease and cutting out a size 10 instead of a 14 and then cutting into the 100% linen without making up a muslim ... and it all working out in the end! Score.

Presenting Dress #2: Flowers That Pop.


Simplicity 2798, which I found via Melissa. I am so, so pleased with myself. Oh right, and with this dress. The princess seams are really flattering, you can't really see it but there are pockets at each side panel which are terribly handy yet don't interfere with the lines of the dress. It's really flattering on, as well - skims your body without being overly revealing, and the silhouette is quite smooth. Also, I love all the customization options, and now that I know it fits, I would really love to make up a sleeved version in the future.


For the yoke I used fabric from the Park Slope line, which I absolutely adore and have been sitting on for quite some time. Initially I wanted to make a shirtdress out of it and then realized that might be a little crazy, even for me. Also, the fabric really doesn't drape well, but it works superbly as an accent, so don't be surprised if I am later inspired to make a brown fall shirtdress with this same fabric as accent piece.


I think this generally fits pretty well. After I pinched out an inch at the waist because I'm petite and have a short waist, I cut the hem 1" longer than the mini dress length and folded it under about 3/4" and used hem tape to create the hem, and it came out pretty much the length I wanted. I found the neck slightly constricting so I winged a new hemline [as, ahem, the very last step, which meant that if I royally screwed it up I'd be very, very mad at myself, but we were Living Dangerously at this point]. I also used bias tape to finish all the seams and could give a crap how wonky the zipper is in the back.


After I finished this, I read somewhere that some people find Simplicity's shoulders to be overly wide. I thought I had wide-ish shoulders after years of swim lessons, badminton, dance, yoga, and then dragon boating, but even I find them a bit on the wide side as well. Thinking about cutting a size 8 shoulder and then grading down to a 10 for the bust and hips next time around. Also, and this is related, but do you see how there is a very bit of excess fabric in the upper chest area?


I've seen some people pinch out a petite adjustment there, too. Think I should do that in the future, except not sure how to handle that with the princess seams. What if I cut the yoke 1/4" lower? Do you think that would do it?

OK, but overall those are tiny gripes. I am sooooooooo excited!!! So much so that I've dorkily peeked ahead in Weather.com to see the next time the weather will climb into the 80s and I can justify wearing it again in May ... and it should be soon! Sweet.

Your Opinion on Skirt #20: Flowers and Honeycomb

We were out celebrating my friend's birthday the other night with a combination of crepes, nutella hot chocolate, and nutella smoothies. Why the combination of hot and cold drinks? Because it's still freezing at night, so we would take a couple sips of the smoothie, sigh with contentment, then switch off to the hot chocolate to keep warm and to admire the subtle differences between the two drinks. Our third friend thinks we're nuts. We're pretty happy the way we are, a slightly nutty duo, because being nutty is 100x's more fun if there's somebody else to be nutty with [kind of like crafting and DIY, no? Thank goodness for the online community!].


So I could use your opinion on this. When I saw this tutorial I thought it called out for really lightweight, floaty fabrics ... and since everybody's been going crazy about the AMH cotton voile and I've always loved her fabrics but have been recently growing disillusioned with quilting cottons and therefore never ordered any of her previous lines, and have been thus been looking for the right project = excuse to test out the cotton voile. So I did. And here's the result:


At first I really didn't like it on. It felt like that strange inbetween place of poofy enough to look blah and too short to hold the ruffles properly. At first I thought I either needed to take out some excess or make it 2x's my hip width [I fudged and made it ~1.3x's my hip width so that I could just buy 1 length of fabric ... it's 54" wide]. And I thought I needed to add a couple inches in length so it would fall properly.


I don't know, what do you think? Wearable? [Once I wear it properly so that it falls the same length front and back] Could I get away with making it narrower? Should I think about making it much, much fuller the next time around? And longer, or not? I'm still trying to get the hang of drape and hand and weight of fabric and whatnot. Also, I will mention this took me much longer than 20 minutes ... I am not good with gathers.

On a separate note, I've been working through The Artist's Way, and this coming week calls for a week without reading. As a student who graduates in six weeks [!!!], I am obviously going to have to fudge this one, so after some thought I've decided to go Tuesday-Saturday without reading, and hope it doesn't ruin the effect too much if I'm still doing a lot of writing for class/job applications/etc. But this also means no blog reading for a week! And very minimal email, I think. I think? Anyways, ack! I will see you all soon enough :-) [and I still have tomorrow to blog stalk!].

Small things, gifted things

FINALS!!! Holy crap. As I was explaining to somebody yesterday, this is one of those 'dash pell mell through your assignments, and just pray you have enough hours in the day to finish everything you need to' kinds of weeks. Like, close your eyes and dive in and just hope that some larger power out there has helped you calculate the amount of time and energy you need for stuff, and that you won't run out of time before you run out of assignments.

So, because I like eye candy and need to feel like this is not an all bad time of life, some random projects I've completed in the recent past:


Handwarmers from the roommate. Leftovers from the 2009 hat mania, actually. I improvised this pattern: cast on 30 stitches, in a 3 knit-2 purl repeat in the round. When I got to the thumbs I cast off 5 stitches and then on the next row cast back on the same number, and then knit until there was no yarn left. Roommate stays up later than I do, so I'm hoping these will help keep her warm as she's typing away.



Believe it or not, I bought these in high school. I was 17. That was almost a decade ago. We are not going to talk about unimportant numbers like age right now. Anyways, I have always looooooved them and probably dragged them to every darn place I've lived [minus China], but didn't wear them terribly often because they were still gloves at that point and didn't fit well into my life. So! I bought myself size 0 double-pointed needles, chopped off each glove tip, unraveled the yarn, cursed like crazy as I tried to work the yarn back on to the needles and then bound off to create the fingerless gloves that you see. A simple refashion, but oh how I wear them more! It's great.

Finally, my DQS8 mini quilt arrived! My swap partner also sent some great fabric and really cute goodies as well. She did such a great job balancing the colors and patterns and using whimsical fabrics and bright and cheery colors, and goodness knows I will probably never get around to making myself a strip-quilt type of decoration so its a darn good thing that somebody else did! And hey look, it fits in perfectly with what I've already got going on my bedroom wall! Best of all, when I wear my DS-shirtdress refashion I can match my wall. Maybe I should just stand there all day. Although given the paragraph at the top of this post, mabye that will have to wait until next week.

It's just that month

Oh, February. At least we are over Hump Day of the hardest month of the year, also known as Valentine's Day [though those two facts are relatively unrelated], and this year, also known as Lunar New Year. Many days to celebrate!

Ack, but February. This time of year always gets to me despite the best of intentions. I know it's coming. I stock up on chocolate [probably a bad idea, given my indecent lack of self control]. I hunt up soup recipes, seasonal recipes. I snuggle into my handknits, flout Weather.com and pull out my skirts and an extra pair of socks. I've picked up [semi] regular exercise. I've even started making bread every weekend.

And yet it still creeps up on me. It's a slight melancholy, a slight despair. A slight unendingness, sameness, that drives me bonkers and makes me wish I was anywhere but here, even though I was anywhere but here just four weeks ago. It's feeling both trapped and that the soothing routines are somehow not quite enough, if that makes sense. I know that sometimes winter is just gotten through one day at a time, but when you're stuck in that muddy middle ground it can be hard to prop up those flagging spirits.



So. How do you get through winter?

Ishbel I

Hello again! The only internet source at my parent's house is not compatible with my computer, and I forgot my camera uploader cable anyways, hence the silence on the blogging front. But today I've gone all native Palo Alto and am currently plopped down at Happy Donuts with what appear to be several tables full of regulars that love this place for its free wireless, large green tables, padded seats, and mile high display of donuts.

I couldn't tell you for certain, but my guess is that the day crowd is the work-from-home, independent business type looking for productivity outside of the house [or, alternatively, the job hunters looking for fresh inspiration], and that the afternoon and evening crowd is mostly high school students tapping away at homework assignments, sprinkled with your occasional Stanford student. All I have to do is bike the ~5 miles here from my parent's place, and I'd be native for sure.

And then there are the families and couples that filter in, a white-haired grandpa with his 6-year old grandson. The grandson carefully picks out a donut smothered in red and green sprinkles and a Coke, the grandpa meticulously lays out a napkin next to his Orange juice. I wonder if the kid will remember these Saturday mornings with grandpa, years from now. I hope so. Not for the partially hydrogenated corn fructose aspect of the memories, but for that time with grandpa that cannot always be taken for granted given how often we move around for school, jobs, retirement homes.

//Insert non-sequitor//

Ishbel :: the mom version


Malabrigo sock yarn, size 3 needles, this took me forever especially since I would get off by a stitch and have to rip back the row. And then there was the time I was 7 rows from finishing and I lost my knitting. Oh, that was a heartbreaking moment. I actually called my mom and cried. Then I checked the lost and found at the Ed school library and spotted my little handmade black bag, and let me tell you, I have never been happier to see black fabric in my life.




The Malabrigo was incredibly soft to knit with [I so get why people go mad over this stuff], and worked up into a beautifully subtly variegated finish. I'm afraid it's a tad small for mom's liking though it's the perfect size for me. I think I'm going to have to retire this pattern and move on to other knitting projects, but Leslie is right, it's helpful to have one small and one large knitting project going at any given time, one for easy transport, the other inching along ever closer to a completed sweater or other such large transport.

Happy 2010 to all! My focus this year, although I would like it to be Crafting, is going to have to be Career, I'm afraid, but I will still be here, and definitely still be drawing inspiration from the many beautiful, talented, thoughtful, creative bloggers out there! Thank you all for keeping me grounded and bringing much joy and peace to my life.

Although I can't say I'd recommend this for long stretches of time ...

... at least this set-up finally got me in front of the sewing machine for the first time in weeks.

We'll keep tweaking. It may take another couple stacks of textbooks to get right, or yet another configuration to ye olde study room. But ... the hum of the sewing machine! Oh, excitingness.

This is how I study best

Little bits of two favorites to stave off the writer's block. The knitting, in particular, is a godsend - there's something about doing something dexterous, tactile ... with my hands ... that unsticks the brain and helps me through procrastination like no other. It's like an ounce of preventative productive procrastination, instead a pound of trolling the internet. The chocolate, too, is ensuring that I have adequate padding for the snow that has recently dusted our streets. Except now I think I'm addicted to the chocolate.

It was the weekend and I had nothing to show for it

A couple things on this overcast Sunday morning.

One, this is the current state of my study:

Clearly I need to get a better handle on my WIP pile. As in, stack 'em up neatly, girl, and stick 'em someplace where you can give yourself a little creative mental space. Mental creative space? You know what I mean. ALSO, just finish something already, will you!?!?

The other day I was walking to school and had a few minutes to spare, so I thought I'd deviate from my usual route and go the other way around to class. A cemetery! For some reason, walking past the cemetery the other way (i.e. coming out of class) has never caused me to pause and consider what it means to be living in a city strewn with cemeteries. I'm used to thinking of them as outside the city limits and not integrated into daily life.

This sudden feeling of strangeness also gave me pause over the things that give me pause. Why is it that, all of a sudden, we'll view something in life from a completely different perspective -- and why is it that we can't see it as such until that very moment? And taking it one step further, how can we then increase our own flexibility in thinking, so that we do not 'box' ourselves in to rigid mindsets and mentalities?

I think the very fact that I just framed my question as such [flexible thinking, rigid mindsets, mentalities], is proof that I've been in school too long. Oh, the jargon. It is killing.

Take 3

I have this nervous habit. OK, I have several nervous habits. But the one I'm thinking about in particular, comes about a lot when I'm procrastinating. Or thinking. Or working on a project. Or some combination thereof. I like to braid my hair.

Tiny braids. French braids. French braid pigtails. Heidi braided pigtails. I twist my fingers through the top of my hair; I weave my fingers in and out of the strands at the nape of my neck. It's an affliction, for sure, and it's been with me almost as long as I've had insomnia [since 16]. And, since recently alerting several friends to this previously secret addiction, I can't help but laugh every time my roommate walks into our dining, and there I am, braiding away.

In the middle of a bout of deadlines. And seriously, if my hair hasn't all fallen out before I get through them, I will consider it nothing short of a miracle.

Photo taken several weeks ago during my morning walk to school. Even though I was just on time out the door, I decided I would take the time to stop and capture some of the images that were brightening up my day. And even though it's kind of a crappy shot, I really don't regret stopping to do something for myself for a change. Or rather, for a hoping-this-becomes-a-new-trend-of-clearing-away-a-little-mental-space-for-myself.

Daily Outfit ...

I decided, in a shocking bout of narcissism, to photograph the outfits I wore last week, including my dress for International Wear A Dress Day [Thursday, second from right]. I'm a little doubtful that I will want to trudge through snow and slush in dress or skirt, so am definitely trying to milk the fun part of my wardrobe while it lasts.

I have to say, looking at these photos I almost feel trendy, and I never feel trendy. But dresses, and in the current length of above the knee, and maybe with a bit of an A-line silhouette that I can actually wear? Earth shattering. Thank you, China.

Minus 10

I went to pilates tonight for the first time in over a month. I slipped into class ten minutes late but oh, how I loved every minute there. It's funny, because I used to hate hate HATE working my core muscles, simply because they were the weakest part of my body. Through the years I've slowly worked through that to the point where they're decently strong, but it wasn't so much the act of toning my abdominal and back muscles [which remain some of my least favorite parts of my body, along with my arms. Haha, that doesn't leave much, does it? But in truth, my body image is so much better than it used to be] ... it was more the fact that I had made a conscious decision to clear away some time for myself, that I was going to actively forego other school activities and place my health at the top of the priority list.

Mmm. And then just lying there, doing nothing but concentrating on my breathing as I moved the exercise ball, engaged muscles, lifted and lowered my legs in deliberate, smooth motions. It was so meditative and peaceful. I just kept thinking, I need to do this more. It's funny how I know how much I love exercise, I know how good it is for you, and yet I never make enough time to do it.

At least I've gotten better about cooking for myself this semester. E. twin and I were talking about that today ~ it must be part of the cycle of learning to be a student again, what you can slowly incorporate back into your life, and when, and how. I'd imagine the same is true for most major transitions in life.

The bread above was yummy except for the fact that I forgot to add enough salt. Somehow when eyeballing 2 tsp salt, a little shake of the Morton can doesn't quite add up. Oops! So I just eat it with my hazelnut/chocolate spread I found on sale at Whole Foods. It's like Nutella but with no trans fats, and it is disappearing from the jar at an alarming rate.

NaBloPoMo!

Oops, here I am, checking in on my blog reader and realizing I totally missed the start of NaBloPoMo. Aiya. Oh, but I'll make up for it the rest of the month, won't I? *Nods vigorously.* What better way to build a writing rhythm, and also to encourage myself to stop and take photographs more often? I seem to blow hot and cold with photography, alternatively finding inspiration everywhere and feeling terribly self-conscious that my shots are mediocre at best. But maybe the best way to push through that self-consciousness is to force myself to continue taking photographs, no judgments, no self-censoring, no matter what.

Anyways. Thanks for all the button sweater love, and the great suggestions for what else I could do with the sweater/buttons/both :-). I think I'll keep it open another day or so and then pick somebody to send it too! How exciting. If I could count on myself to actually do more crafting, I'd say that I should do tons more giveaways. As it is, I should anyways. After all, crafting and this wonderful community brings incredible peace, balance, creativity, and room for growth in my life. I don't think you can underestimate the importance of that.

Mini Quilt #4 // Work It

Ugh. It has been a real tamade kind of day. You know, the one where I stomp into my bedroom for my bar of Green & Black's chocolate, wilfully ignoring the health coach in me that used to counsel people through alternative, non-chocolate methods of coping with stress or a bad day. Suffice it to say, every last thing that I did post 11:15 today was a complete and utter waste of time. Not for lack of trying. Oh no, I had many things that I tried to do today. When you're stressed that you're behind on your work, that is the loveliest feeling in the world. Another day -- LOST!

OK. Let's stop dwelling on that and instead turn to this mini quilt that I slipped into the mail a week ago. This is the fourth doll quilt I've ever made, and this time I really tried to lavish a lot of attention and detail onto a very small piece of real estate.



When I first saw the announcement go out for Doll Quilt Swap 7 I thought, “No … no way.” No way because there are some darn amazing quilters in the pool and I didn’t want to be the laggard in the group. No way, also, because I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to commit myself to another one of these.

Then Rita emailed me. Crafting buddy Rita. The one who helped me finish the binding on the circle quilt for mom. “Are you signing up for this? I will if you will!”

Oh man. I am horrible with peer pressure. I was really lucky in that my fantastic swap partner gave me very free reign. “Quilter’s choice” were her exact words, I believe. So while I was piecing together that skirt [I had been working on that baby all summer], I kept loving the scraps lying in heaps on the ground, kept thinking it was such a shame to not use the fabric combination for something else.

Random piecing commenced, since I have never been particularly good at traditional quilt patterns. Something about choosing fabrics that work well with a pattern has always mystified me, but random and quirky? I think we’ve established that I like random.

Once I completed the first part of the doll quilt [and, thankfully, she commented that she liked it! Boy, quirky is hard to do for somebody else], it sat for a long time. I liked it well enough but thought it could be better. I thought about it to and from The Food Project. I even mentally brought it with me on vacation. I knew I wanted something random in one corner and that I wanted an uneven white border, but I couldn’t figure out what that something in the bottom left should be.

And then one night while lying on Dan's brother's inflatable mattress while visiting in DC, the inspiration fairies came dancing at my bedside as I was drifting off to sleep.

A new take on random that I had not yet tried. I think it works. To my eye, the random and color and white space all balance each other out, though I have no idea how it looks to an outsider. I’ve really been trying to work on my hand quilting, and within the “random” portion of the quilt I actually inserted a couple repeating motifs, so I tried to tie that all together by quilting those fraternal twins in similar ways.



Back when I was working my first job, one of my very favorite projects was the opportunity to chaperone Photo Camp, a project of National Geographic where they partner with local organizations that serve high-need youth, train the youth in photography skills for 4 days, and give them each cameras to document their neighborhoods, lives, and culture. Watching the high school students become familiar with their camers, listening in on photography tips from highly esteemed photographers in the field, and seeing the photographs that this collaboration produced was truly amazing.

During that time, one of the key photography lessons I learned was the importance of “working” a shot. Take ten, twenty photos of the same subject. Don’t just be satisfied with your first or second shot, but really dig in, take your time, be patient, and try to imagine the subject from all sorts of angles. Sometimes your first picture will still wind up being your favorite, but No. 12 or No. 19 might really surprise you. It’s worth it to stick around the scene of the crime just a little bit longer, because you never quite know what you’ll see through the viewfinder that works really, really well once back in the lab.

So I'm unofficially calling this the Work It Mini Quilt. Because I really let it percolate for a long time. Took my time with the details. Played around with composition quite a bit. Cultivated patience. I think that patience investment did pay off. Which means ... which means I obviously need to kick my procrastination habit in the butt instead of pretending that it lets ideas marinate. Really, it's a much weaker form of Working It.

For the backing I used some more DS in the two colorways, and stitched some rick rack over the seam to tie it together. Bound in yellow, I am really in love with this color combination. It may just have to find its way into my winter wardrobe somehow [haven't figured that one out yet! Everything winter tends to be more somber colored]. But wouldn't a splash of color be really nice when outside is so gloomy?



The one highlight of my day is that I'm back working with The Food Project for this fall term, at least. And oh, how I smiled when I stepped back into the office. It's almost like I never left. I really do love the chemistry between the people who work there, who obviously care about the community they've created, both within the staff members and the bond with the youth that come through the program each year.

Susan: So ... I may have opened my big fat mouth again. *Sees Julien smiling.* Don't smile.
Julien: *Still smiling.* Actually, this is anxiety.


Susan: Margaret, our new Executive Director ...
Max: Do you really think we can still call her new? I mean, it's been 18 months now.
Susan: How much longer do you think we can call her 'new'?
Julien: What? Compared to our old ED?
Max: Yes, our old and molding ED.
Julien: Maybe five years.