The bud
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing
(From “Saint Francis and the Sow,” by Galway Kinnel)
It’s all projects, all the time here at Chez Cat Hair lately. (Idle hands are the devil’s playground, after all.) I didn’t think this should get a spot on a Tuesday Project Roundup because the only skill involved was stapling, but there is fabric—specifically, a yard of Schumacher “Chiang Mai” linen stretched over a frame my dad made.
It’s art!
It hangs on the east wall of the main floor, in what will be the dining area if I ever find a kitchen table. 
I barely had the fabric art hung before I moved on the the NEXT project: Drapes for the main floor. Must stay busy!
I feel as if I’ve been wearing skinny jeans and big sweaters and boots forever, but it’s still not warm enough for dresses. So how can I make the skinny jeans I’ve worn ALL WINTER exciting again? Make a tunic!
This is the Cynthia Rowley pattern I’ve made before, this time using a cotton voile. It’s light and springy and has an exploded stars print–what more could one ask for in a tunic? I may even mix it up and wear it with BALLET FLATS, not boots. The excitement!
The Writer’s Almanac tells me that 70 years ago today, Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse.
In Mrs. Dalloway, shell-shocked Septimus hears birds sing at him in Greek, which I’ve read was her own experience during a depressive episode. I’m glad she was able to write what she did–and that we can treat mental illness a little bit better now.
1. My new fabric “art”–stretch a yard of Schumacher “Chiang Mai” linen over a frame your dad made, staple, and pow! Color!
2. Anouk Aimee being mod in 8 1/2:
3. Doctor Who!
Let’s look at that fabric again, though.
1. It was cloudy here for the super perigee moon last Saturday, which kind of made me feel like the girl who misses the sun shining on Venus in that Bradbury story. But then I read that another full moon that will be almost as bright will happen on May 6 next year. I guess its full phase will be pretty close to perigee–not coinciding perfectly with it like the one that just happened–but it made me feel better.
2. Dr. Sagan would be ashamed of me, but I’m going to say it anyway: I think the “super moon” wreaked emotional havoc over the last week and a half. At least, that’s what I’m blaming.
3. And finally, Toby’s garage explorations are getting a little out of hand:
All he wants to do is play on the Ford Kitty Gym–and of course I can’t say no to him. Spoiled Toby!
The way you describe finding love as opening a “low door in a wall” that opens to “an enclosed and enchanted garden” makes my heart happy.
But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiousity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city.
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisted.
(I watched Downton Abbey last week, which reminded me of the Granada Brideshead series from the 80s.)
Today marks three years of Toby in my life! Here he was the first day he came home–so small and worried.
And here he was Monday, large and sassy and inspecting fabric:
You already know that I get pretty ridiculous when it comes to Toby, dedicating poems to him on Valentine’s Day, reading him The Tailor of Gloucester on Christmas Eve, saying he’s the love of my life on our last “anniversary,” etc. So it’s not crazy of me at ALL to put up the theme from Love Story to mark this year’s anniversary. NOT AT ALL. Because I think the lyrics suit the occasion:
He came into my life and made the living fine
and gave a meaning to this empty world of mine
…I reach for his [paw], it’s always there
As I said back in December, my brother and his wife are expecting a little boy in about a month. One of the baby showers has now passed so I can finally show you some BABY PROJECTS!
This is a little sweater with elephants on it (the green blobs), from this pattern. It turned out pretty big, so I think Nephew will be able to wear it his second winter.
And what does a stylish baby wear with his cardigan? Matching pants, of course, with elephant fabric on the cuffs. (I even tried out flat-felled seams on these, so they met my 3+1 Things goal.)
I finished both of these before I moved, but getting them wrapped for the shower got me excited again to sew tiny things. What should I do next? Doesn’t every baby need a Hawaiian shirt?
Today the composer I’d listen to if I couldn’t listen to anything else was born. Bach was also my favorite composer to play, back when I was playing (especially this). I’d always think of a Bradbury quote from The Martian Chronicles when I was practicing:
He built an architecture of Bach, stone by exquisite stone, raising a music cathedral so vast that its farthest chancels were in Ninevah, its farthest dome at St. Peter’s left hand. The music stayed and did not crash in ruin when it was over, but partook of a series of white clouds and was carried away among other lands.