Wild Olive's Stitch Swap

So this month, I decided to do something I've always wanted to do: participate in a crafting swap. Since embroidery and knitting are kind of my thing, Wild Olive's Stitch Swap was the perfect challenge. I'll be honest, I still consider myself a beginner when it comes to embroidery and hand-sewing. I have a small repertoire of stitches, most of them are basic. And I had never before done any kind of finishing to my pieces to make them "wall ready." Mostly I stitch textiles like towels or t-shirts. So I stretched myself a little, and over all, I'm pretty pleased with the results:

After doing some stealth research on my secret stitch pal, I discovered that she has a Boston Terrier. I hope my little embroidery piece reminds her of him.

To see more of everyone's stitching, check out the Flickr pool.

Poodle

Poodle
Originally uploaded by Fiber Fairy

A tea towel stitched for my grandma's birthday.

Call Me Ishmael

So. Let me start by saying that I've read Moby Dick, and I'm not a fan. Man, that Melville could really have used a firmer editorial hand. The book is about 625 pages, depending on your edition and there's really only about 250 pages of story there. Everything else is just minutia...pages and pages of minutia. Was the guy getting paid by the word?

Our friends over at Feeling Stitchy are running a little contest called Covered in Stitches. Essentially, you stitch up the cover of a book. It can be your own design or you can embroider an existing cover, doesn't matter. But it got me to thinking about book covers and cover artwork in general. And I'm going to repeat something I've been saying for years: here in the US, we have terrible taste in cover art. Nothing says "chick lit" faster than a blurry photograph of some cropped body part. But digging through my (massive) book collection tonight, I found a few that stand out:

Why yes, it is Laundry Day...why do you ask?

Uh, yeah...up in the corner of that one photo is....Moby Dick. The cover art is about the only thing that I like about that book. And I like it a lot. In fact, I'm thinking that it may be my entry for the Covered in Stitches contest.

Every Day I Write the Book*

I've never been someone who keeps a journal or diary. It takes time and self-discipline, both of which I never seem to have enough of. But I keep hearing over and over about how important keeping a regular journal is to the creative process, whatever your outlet is. And I get it -- I do. It's just that I feel so, well....uninspired. My life is....mundane. Ordinary. Boring. And I like mundane and ordinary, for the most part (drama is really overrated, trust me). But the very qualities that make for a relatively comfortable existence don't necessarily lend themselves to scintillating self-expression.

And then I saw this. And this.

And I've been thinking about one of these.

And I'm feeling kind of...inspired.

I like the 30 Days of _____ idea. And starting with lists is brilliant. For me, it's perfect -- I can take the day's topic and expand on it as much or as little as I want to. Or have time for. And I love lists -- I'm always making mental lists of things. And so without further ado:

Things I'm Looking Forward To

1.  Receiving my new Fuji Instax 210 and experimenting with it;
2.  Lunch at Zono on Monday with my friends, Penny and Sue;
3.  Finishing my current embroidery project
     (it's a secret for now since it's for someone's birthday);
4.  Starting 2 new embroidery projects:

• A black-work portrait of Franny based on a pen-and-ink drawing that some friends' daughter did years ago;
• Feeling Stitchy's September Stitch-Along;

* Every Day I Write the Book is an Elvis Costello song. Because my life has an 80s soundtrack.

Current Work In Progress

My current work-in-progress.

Feeling Stitchy has been doing a series of stitch-alongs lately. The one for August focuses on a technique in which the stitcher embroiders on patterned fabric. It's an effect I've wanted to try for a while and this seems like the perfect opportunity.

So far, I've blanket-stitched some applique birds on my piece (put-a-bird-on-it, anyone?), sewn a few shell buttons on it, and did some simple outline and fill stitches.  But now I'm kind of at an impasse. It needs some oomph but I don't know creatively what to do next. Satin stitch? Some lazy-daisies? A few twinkle stars?  This was my original inspiration.

Sin-Taxes and George Hamilton

The new health-care reform bill is responsible for some new, so-called "sin taxes." Read about the uproar this is causing in this article about taxing tanning salon services:

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100417/NEWS0201/4170340/Tanning+salons+call+sin+tax+unfair

Me? I'm as pale as they get. And I embrace my pastiness -- practically shout it out from the rooftop. But what gets me about our over-reaching government is this little nugget I read:

The Food and Drug Administration is considering new tanning rules that may include banning people with pale skin.

In my opinion, tanning is stupid.  But what right does the FDA have to exclude a certain segment of the population, the pale segment, from getting our inner George Hamilton on?

The Internet Makes Us All Smarter? Oh, Really.

I just saw a commercial for AT&T. They claim that access to the Internet makes us smarter. And then it goes on to ask, "What happens when everyone has it?" 

     1.   I have recently learned that the term “idiot box” now refers to the computer. It was once used exclusively to describe the television;

     2.   AT&T is my wireless service provider. They also used to provide my landline telephone service, and kept sending me information about U-verse and high-speed DSL. The only problem is that despite living less than 10 minutes from a major metropolitan area, DSL and U-verse aren’t available in my neighborhood. AT&T doesn’t provide these services to my location.

The irony of the above-referenced commercial isn’t lost on me.

A Global Book Group?

Lately, there's been some buzz in the literary blog-o-sphere about this idea called, "One Book, One Twitter." It's sort of a global book group for the Twitter community proposed by Jeff Howe of Crowdsourcing.  Here's the plan in a nutshell: a gazillion people all read the same book simultaneously and tweet about it.  It's a lot like the one book-one city thing except on a broader scale.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, though. 

On the one hand I love books, reading and all things literature-related.  Reading is fundamental, you know.

But is Twitter the best forum for a book group?  By its very nature, Twitter restricts posts to around 140 characters.  What kind of meaningful exchange can you really have on the relevancy of 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 in only 140 characters?

And do we really need to have someone tell us what to read?  Isn't that what Oprah is for?

I suspect that the people who finally elect to participate in this literary social experiment are the same people who already belong to an online book community like Goodreads or Shelfari or Librarything, and so Jeff Howe won't really be accomplishing anything groundbreaking.  But I'm wondering what other people think about it.

Get The Balance Right...

One of the things I'm working on this year is taking better care of myself. This doesn't mean that I've resolved to lose 20 pounds or to lower my cholesterol. It's more general, and thus I think it's more achievable. It just means that I'm taking steps to feel better, both physically and mentally. Because I don't have a specific goal in mind (like be a size 6 by June), I feel like I have a better chance at success. So far, my plan is working: I'm eating better, getting a little exercise, socializing a bit and expressing my creative side more. It's this last part that is about balance -- and I really think it contributes to a better sense of mental health. Creativity means different things to different people and honestly, it isn't something I feel gifted with. I envy creative and artistic people. They just seem to have a special quality and perspective. I've read that creativity is something that is cultivated -- it's like a muscle you exercise regularly or it atrophies. I'm starting to believe that's true. I think you've got to expose yourself to a variety of experiences and stimuli in order to start building that creative spark. And I really do think there's a link between a suppressed creative mind and depression, and that there's a reason that art therapy is such a helpful tool in treating and diagnosing mental disorders. I feel like if I'm able to bring balance to my life -- to fulfill both my everyday practical obligations and satisfy my creative desires -- that I'm a happier person, a more whole person. The problem is that everyday life isn't always conducive to developing creative tendencies. How do artists and writers do it? How do they separate their lives -- their commitments and obligations -- from the time they need to nurture and grow the other side of their selves, their expressive side? How do other people get the balance right?

Family

I was raised by wild dogs. Well, not really but wild dogs would've probably done a better job at parenting than my own mother and father. My parents were pretty messed up. Lots of drama, drugs and booze. After a while, the rest of the family (the sane side) distanced themselves. Now that both my parents are dead, I'm re-connecting with my uncle, aunts and cousins. But here's the thing: there's a 30 year gap or so since I last saw them. I like them -- they all seem pretty nice (and normal). But I just don't feel connected, like we're family. I know that comes with spending time with them and getting to know each other. But I think maybe it's just me that feels this way -- I have the impression they feel like we're there already, we're Family (with a capital F). I want to explain how I feel but I don't want to hurt their feelings in the process. And I wonder if I'm weird because I can't feel connected to them yet. Relationships are hard. I know family is what you make of it -- your family doesn't even have to be related to you if that's how you define it and what you want. But for me it seems especially hard to figure out what it means. Do other people have this problem? Why is Family so complicated?

The Javier Bardem Effect

I broke one of my long-standing rules and watched a Woody Allen film: Vicky Christina Barcelona. I blame it on Javier Bardem. In any case, it has now stirred in me an overwhelming desire to visit Barcelona. I'm under no delusion that I will actually meet Javier there but regardless, I have fallen completely in love with the idea of traveling to Spain this year.

The movie was pretty good, too!

...In Which I Bemoan the Dearth of Common Sense In Today's World

My driver's license unexpectedly expired on my birthday this year. I say unexpectedly because it has always been renewed, without fail, since I first acqquired it at the age of 17. The DMV is supposed to notify you when your license isn't automatically renewed, but apparently the clerk in charge of keeping me abreast of this development was furloughed and I was blissful unaware of my scofflaw status. Once it was helpfully brought to my attention (thank you, local parks and recreation attendant), I scooted over to the DMV to rectify the situation. Except that after 20-odd years, I have to take the written test again. Now, when I first took the written test all those years ago the DMV handbook was more like a pamphlet. A lot has happened vehicularly-speaking since then and the handbook is more akin to the tax code these days. So the nice folks at the DMV sent me off with a temporary license and a DMV handbook, and an admonishment to study and come back for the test in a week or so.

Here's where things get irritating (and face it, when it comes to me you knew we'd arrive at irritating pretty quickly): I went to BevMo today to pick up a bottle of wine and some champagne for New Year's Eve. The clerk asked me for my ID (thank you very much, nice young BevMo boy), and I produced my license.

Clerk: Um, this is expired.

Me: Yes, I know. But here's my temporary license too.

At this point, another clerk interupted our transaction.

Clerk #2: Is it paper? Because that's not a valid form of ID. We can't accept it.

People, I am 42. While I'm somewhat youthful in appearance, by no stretch of the imagination could I be taken for someone under 21 years of age. My driving privilege expired -- not my birthdate. For cryin' out loud. The nice young Trader Joe's guy had no problem a few weeks ago when I used my expired license to validate my pinot grigio purchase. I'm all for responsible sales of alcohol and whatnot but honestly! What has happened to common sense these days?

And you know what the BevMo clerk said to me next?

"Just have a friend come with you to buy your stuff."

Great.

I felt like I was 18 again. Could someone please pass me the Boones Farms?

The Cult of Youth

There is a clothing store called Forever 21. The name puts me right over the edge. It implies that 21 is the golden age, the pinnacle of life. It also somehow manages to convey the message that anyone who isn't 21 cannot possibly be fashionable.

To add insult to injury, there is a new mega-sized Forever 21 right next to my local bookstore, ensuring that the shopping complex will now be overrun by scantily-dressed and rude young people. Ironically, this same shopping complex has had problems with loittering teens and curfew enforcement.

How did we evolve (and I'm not really sure that's the right term to use here) into a society that values youth and inexperience over maturity and the corresponding wisdom that comes from a life lived past 35? More and more, I am growing to resent the disenfranchisement by advertisers and the media of anyone older than 40. We aren't supposed to look our age, dress our age, or even act our age. Honestly, I'm really getting tired of one specific segment of the population so heavily influencing what I watch on TV or listen to on the radio or what kind of car I drive. Um...hello out there? It's the over-40 crowd that has the most discretionary income. And we're more likely to remain loyal to a product or brand. Since the average age-expectancy is now past 80, that's something to think about.

My Past Life

Most people don't know this about me but I took cello lessons for almost 5 years. I had to give the cello up when my husband became terminally ill with kidney and liver failure. I still have my cello, although I haven't played it in over 7 years. But lately I've had a strong urge to get it out and start practicing again. I loved playing the cello and I love hearing music that features this beautiful instrument. It's so evocative and melancholy, and has such a rich timbre -- it's entirely different from any other string instrument and so much more expressive in my opinion. One of my favorite CDs is Yo-Yo Ma playing the Bach suites. Yo-Yo is a god -- an incredible artist. His mastery of the cello is humbling and also inspirational. If you have the chance, listen to his interpretation of the Bach suites. And then give his "Appalachian Waltz" a spin. Two entirely different genres of music, both impressively interpreted by an awesome musician. As for me, I think I might soon be dusting off my own instrument and tuning it up. Let's hope my bow still has its hair.

And Now For Something Completely Irreverent

So I'm probably the only person in the universe who wasn't aware of this website (we can't all be hipsters all the time):

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

My favorite quote so far?

P. Diddy on formal rival Snoop Dogg: "We ain't no gangsters. We are men first."

Plenty - A Cultural Cornicopia

Some people treat a visit to a museum the same way they read a magazine: they're skimmers. Others take a more "War and Peace" approach. While I'm not quite Tolstoyic, I do like to take my time and really appreciate the exhibit. And I usually purchase the guidebook or audio tour because I want to know more. I want the history, the backstory, the in-depth insight. But according to an article this week in the NY Times arts section, most museum visitors are more interested in taking photographs of the exhibits than actually seeing them.

Part of this is attributed to a "cornicopia of culture." We are a society rich in access to art, theater, design, literature and music. But all too often we adopt a "checklist" mentality when it comes to the appreciation of the arts: Been there, done that, and "1,000 Things to Do/See/Read/Visit/Experience Before You Die." Jeez, talk about a lot of pressure. No wonder we're so rushed -- we've got a lot to do before we permanently clock out.

So I'm curious...what do you think? Are you a skimmer or do you like to make a day of it? Leave a comment and let me know!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/arts/design/03abroad.html/

Anthropologie

The latest Anthropologie catalogue arrived today.

Honestly? I think their stuff is ridiculously priced, but I love their catalogues. They usually feature interesting fashion and jewelry and an eclectic collection of textiles for the home. Everything is beautifully photographed, and becomes fodder for my richly imagined fantasy life. I can *totally* see me living in the atelier pictured above!

This issue also has a sheath dress that's heavily textured with embroidered running stitches. I think detailing like this would look good on a cardigan, too -- maybe not the entire cardi but small areas like the hem and cuffs or the buttonband. Check out that chunky vintage-looking necklace -- very cool.

And this goldfish pillow ($118!) reminds me that I have a sashiko koi pattern in my craft to-do queue. I've been wondering what I could do with the finished piece, but now I've got an idea...

Anthropologie is online at http://www.anthropologie.com/.

You can also request your own catalogue -- because everyone likes to dream.

Eleanor Wood

I'm really interested in mixed-media artwork, collages and paper craft. I love the textural variety and the inventive use of materials. So when I read about Eleanor Wood on another website, I had to check her out. You should too:

http://gdi09.co.uk/eleanorwood.html

I'd Like a Double-Double Please, and Hold the Onion

The recent dust-up over Amazon's decision to delete George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 from customers' Kindle readers has raised awareness about the shortcomings of the ebook. When it first came out, I was excited about the Kindle. The conveniences that the portable ebook reader boasted were attractive:the relative affordability of ebooks compared to the traditional book; the ability to download books anytime, anywhere; and the capability to store your entire reading library on a single device that you can take with you on the go. But there are some drawbacks:

1. Ebooks can't be resold;
2. Ebooks can't be loaned to friends or donated to the library;
3. Ebooks may eventually contain advertisements.

This last item concerns me. The talk out there is that ebooks will continue to be cheaper because of ad sponsorship, but traditional books will actually be more expensive as a result. Don't want to see ads in your copy of the latest Dan Brown novel? You'll have to pay extra for that. It seems wrong to pay more for something you aren't getting. Would you pay more for a cheeseburger with no onion than for one with onion? Not me. And it bothers me that Amazon had no qualms about logging onto Kindle readers in the middle of the night and arbitrarily deleting ebooks that customers had legal ownership of. Amazon has since apologized and claims it won't happen again in the future, but the very fact that they have the technological capability to do this is worrisome. I won't be purchasing a Kindle anytime soon.

The Blog is Here

Welcome ~

I've finally joined the blogging community!

You'll see a little bit of everything here ... crafting, entertainment, commentary on current events & issues, what's interesting now and what's on my radar. Please explore and let me know your feedback. Since this is my first attempt at creating a blog, I'd like to know your thoughts and suggestions. Leave a comment with any ideas or improvements you think would be helpful.