July 2007

I thought my crafty production rates would go up after I got my sewing machine last week, but they really just shifted: Instead of making a dress over the weekend, I made one during the week. This is fabric a friend in Hawaii sent me for no reason. (More people should send fabric for no reason. It’s fantastic.)
But with my production rates so high for so long, people at work have just given up asking, “Oh, what a nice dress. Did you make it?” But to make up for it, people on the street have started shouting, “I like your dress!” or “What a nice summer dress!” as I walk to the library or the Gallivan Center. At least wearing a dress prompts polite comments.

Where was this picture taken? Canyonlands? Somewhere in the Mexican desert? No—Mars.

Somebody found the NASA site while idly reading about drunken astronauts. Science is cool!

1. Martha Stewart has an interview in Wired magazine, in which she blames the Walkman for the end of her marriage. (And also makes some good points about creativity.)

2. My morning glory is blooming—I’ll have to get up early enough to get a picture this weekend. And a hummingbird was checking it out this morning!

3. For all the science-fiction lovers, here’s a Dune lolcat picture:

Yesterday I read a New York Times article about the flooding in Southern Britain, with the story of John Burrow, an old chap who had to be evacuated:

As for Mr. Burrow, he said the worst part of being flooded was the struggle to evacuate his cats, one of whom jumped into the water in fear. Finally, he corralled them into cat boxes provided by the fire department and, led by several firefighters, he waded through the river that had been the road, being careful not to fall into a manhole after their covers had been ripped off by the force of the water.

“I wasn’t scared, as long as I could wade along the road,” he said. “And the war was worse.”

The war was worse. What understatement. Carry on, sir!

Because now I have a sewing machine!And I have a fan. (Sweatshops get hot.)

I took over my mother’s oldest sewing machine about two years ago, but it conked out when I moved this spring. This weekend it got a tuneup and I got a cabinet for it, so now it can sit out all the time, just begging for projects. Think of what I can accomplish! I’ll be unstoppable! I might laugh like an evil villain now!

Because now I have a sewing machine!And I have a fan. (Sweatshops get hot.)

I took over my mother’s oldest sewing machine about two years ago, but it conked out when I moved this spring. This weekend it got a tuneup and I scored a cabinet on which to put it, so now it can sit out all the time, just begging for projects. Think of what I can accomplish! I’ll be unstoppable! I might laugh like an evil villain now!

So when a large part of your happiness comes from controlling your reality by way of fabric, as I explained Friday, it can be more upsetting than normal when a project doesn’t work out. Like the plaid dress with the vintage, instruction-less pattern last weekend. It didn’t work. I was unhappy.

But I needed a project to give me meaning and purpose and a sense of fulfillment, and lo! ask for a project and ye shall receive your friends’ mothers vintage pattern stash. And ask for a fabric for said pattern and ye shall find it on sale. So I had a happy time making a happy accident dress:It’s also something of a “happy eyesore,” to use a phrase from the Dress a Day blog lady, but I like eyesores (“what? I can’t hear you over this print!”).

BoingBoing, source of all my interesting news, posted a link today to a site where a very clever person had re-imagined famous poems as limericks. Nothing makes me happier than corny literary tricks! Maybe I’ll write my own today!

(Also try Twitterku, which are haikus made up of random lines from Twitter. Good times!)

Remember the title from last October? I wanted a Latin translation of my motto, “Have hobbies and see what happens,” which I love fo rbeing so apt. In fact, something happened yesterday to reinforce my motto:

I was driving in town and saw a dog poking its head out of a car window. I like dogs, and this dog was big and black and shaggy and obviously very excited about getting to poke its head out of the window. So I smiled and looked at the dog as I sped up, and glanced over to see what type of person would own a dog like that, and I saw an old boyfriend, one of the two people I’ve loved, and I just thought, “Goddammit, why are you driving around in a new car with a dog I don’t even know about, if I loved you once? Why didn’t that turn out differently?” [Commenters: just don’t.]

As long as I’m talking about my old loves, what about the second of the two, the one who showed up on my doorstep last August with a Ravel CD, the one whom I hadn’t seen in five years, whose appearance I thought heralded newfound happiness and a bright future and lots of Ravel? The times we would have! But no. (I do still have the CD.)

But before I start sounding too crazy-bitter, I’d better get to the larger point, which is this: Very often, people do not do what you want them to do. They do not buy big black dogs with you. They do not decide to move in with you and have a life together full of chamber music. They do what they want to do, and if that involves dogs or Schubert with someone else, there is not a thing you can do about it.

That is what makes hobbies so fantastic. The yarn or the fabric I work with does not have a choice. I can make it do what I want. In the craft world, things are exactly how I want them to be. It’s a great feeling–sort of a metaphysical “Take that!” to a universe that won’t accommodate me.

So yes. Some Latin, some of my uncomfortable personal history, and another reason I like my hobbies. (And if I end up knitting myself a dog and a family in the next ten years, well–I guess this was the first warning.)

Happy Friday!

I have tomorrow off, which makes today feel like Friday. So here’s some early unrelated information!

1. I will be struggling with the vintage dress pattern tomorrow (and I will win, by god). The fabric is a bright plaid, and while spending THREE HOURS on the bodice last week I had some time to wonder about the origins of the word “plaid.” The first recorded usage was in1512, from the Gaelic plaide “blanket, mantle,” of unknown origin, perhaps a contraction of peallaid “sheepskin,” from peall “skin,” from Latin pellis (but OED finds this “phonetically improbable”). (Unrelated note: I need more opportunities to use “phonetically improbable” in everyday conversation.)

2. Have you ever wanted to see where your cat goes when he has his adventures? Order him a CatCam and find out! Or just see photos from a day in the life of a cat named Mr. Lee.

3. If you ever need to ask a French person is he or she made something themselves, this is how: Avez-vous fait cela vous-meme?