Digging Through Old Quotes

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I save things as I see them for the blog but, much like buying fabric, I’m often distracted by the latest thing I see to blog about. I saved this excerpt from a newsletter by Helena Fitzgerald in 2022, but it still feels relevant, especially as I think about adopting another creature and taking care of family and how loving anything means you give it your heart.

 

On Instagram, someone posts a picture of people sheltering in a metro in Kyiv. … A kid in a corner holds a pet carrier with one hand and kneels down to its level, looking intently at whatever is inside. All people want is for nothing to happen; all anybody wants is another day of our soft, stupid little lives, to be allowed the vulnerabilities we have built into them. We clutter up our houses with useless objects that mean something to us; we adopt pets who would slow us down in a crisis. All this is a way of ignoring the truth that nothing stops, which is to say it is a form of love.

Love means I have to make contingency plans. It means I have to worry about what I leave behind. I have allowed something to matter. I have allowed something to depend on me, and I have allowed myself to depend on someone.

Everything washes away; we all know this. We are making a declaration that it is worth it to choose the losing side. I would rather not pick up my phone; I would rather not worry about whether I fed the cats, or if they’re sick, or what I would do if they were, or how to bring them with me if I had to leave. I would rather not have to do the more difficult math of considering anyone other than myself, in a world where nothing stops, where there is always something else each next day. But I choose all that anyway; I would rather try and fail to stand still with you than to be fast and sleek without you.

Tuesday Project Roundup: An Even Brighter Shirt

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My Easter Liberty print shirt clearly wasn’t bright enough, because I had to buy some of this neon apricot cotton when I saw it on Harmony’s site and make an even brighter one. a neon peach mini-striped shirt hangs in front of a white door

I tried a new pattern for it, the Rose Raglan Button Up from Paradise Patterns. It, uh, reinforced why I stick to my two main pattern companies (Daughter Judy and Closet Core). Thankfully I read this review and suggested mods before I cut it out, so I still ended up with something wearable.

For the sewists out there, here are my mods:

  • Made a half-inch forward shoulder adjustment (standard for me).
  • Took a total of 1.5 inches out of the sleeve length; normally, I have to ADD an inch to most patterns so the sleeves on this as drafted are hella long. (One inch of that removed length was off the bottom, thus reducing the sleeve placket length, and the other half inch was taken off at the lengthen/shorten line.)
  • Reversed the side of the sleeve where the placket extension and pleats appear, per the Threadloop review. (Making it as drafted would have had the cuff buttoning the “wrong” way, wrapping under the arm to button instead of over it. Why?!)

The pattern does walk you through making flat felled seams for everything, though, so the finish on the inside is nice and clean and I’m happy with the finished shirt. It’s so BRIGHT!

A woman takes a mirror selfie. She's wearing a neon apricot striped shirt, camo pants, and clogs.

 

Scenes From Record Store Day

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The first place we went to (Graywhale) still had a line out the door at 2:30 and we just turned right around. I was feeling discouraged, but Doc reminded me that the other record store I wanted to visit (Randy’s) had an ice cream place next door and why don’t we just go and get ice cream and check it out? (What a gem he is.)

After an affogato break, we walked right in to Randy’s and I found the jazz and soul albums I wanted, plus a couple used ones. At the register, I asked if they’d already sold out of the R. Carlos Nakai Navajo flute release, and got a very long look from the cashier.

“No,” he said, “We didn’t even get that in. We all thought it was a weird release. But I can special order it for you? Gets here Thursday.”

So I special ordered the weird release like the weird old lady I am and took all my records home to listen to them. The end!

Friday Links

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1. Tomorrow is Record Store Day and I’m going to hope that not everyone wants R. Carlos Nakai’s Canyon Trilogy on vinyl (for the first time!) and try my luck in the afternoon, vs lining up at an ungodly hour in the morning. I also have my eye on some jazz and soul. We’ll see!

2. Here for this: The mystery of the lost Roman herb

3. I haven’t gotten in any water out in nature in a long time and I can tell. Maybe I need to find a waterfall this weekend:

 

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Thursday Poem

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Sometimes an Instagram poem just hits right. Maybe I need to write that last line on my hand so I can remember it–as my therapist says, “If you’re going to spend your energy imagining the future, why not imagine the best possible outcome?”

 

In Aggressive Pursuit of Joy
for Lesley

by Danielle Coffyn

Andrea Gibson once said joy is a muscle
you build by dancing when you’re inclined
to stay in bed. My friend survives a blood clot
& falls in love with living. Welcomes wrinkles
& silver strands. Bench presses sunshine,
azalea, stargazing in the desert. Some seasons
we cannot escape biopsy results, bad bosses
& unpaid bills, sobbing every morning
in the shower. Pain is the currency of existence.
If each new day is unknown, why not spend
our time in aggressive pursuit of joy?

Happy Birthday, Mom

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My mom would have been 78 today. I think she’d still be biking and gardening and wanting to travel. Maybe the two of us would go back to Paris. Maybe we’d all go to Hawaii again as a family.

A woman and man in their 50s stand on a beach next to two carved Hawaiian figures

Sometimes, thinking of the alternate timeline is really hard. But at least it’s gotten easier and easier to just think of her, to realize our life with her will never go away, that it happened and it shaped us and we’ll always have that.

Happy birthday, Mom. We love you.

Tuesday Sweater Progress: Soon!

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Apparently, sweater knitting is either all or nothing with me. I’ve been going all-out for six weeks on my J. Crew-ish rollneck sweater and all I have left to do is some length on the sleeves and body!

An almost-finished washed blue sweater with red stripes laid out on on orange ottoman.

It was 80 degrees in March so I’m not sure I’ll be able to wear this until the fall (or the next alarmingly mild winter) but I think it’s going to be really nice–oversized and classic and (most importantly) NOT ITCHY.

Niche Playlists

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Vinyl records are currently 90% of my personality and now I’m doing the [undiagnosed but let’s be honest here] autism spectrum trait of “go EXTREMELY deep on a hobby.”

Salt Lake City has a newer listening bar that only plays vinyl; they held a “Sunday Service” on Easter of jazz and soul. Their Instagram showed the playlist for the afternoon so of course I had to recreate it on Apple Music so I could hear all these rare tracks. (Here’s the link.)

Screenshot of an Instagram story with a printed program of music on a bar with a glass of wine

 

And if really niche jazz albums weren’t enough to get into, there’s even more niche international releases. Vietnamese pre-1975 soul, anyone??