Month: February 2018

Nigel Knows

Karen

How about some Surprisingly Deep Life Advice From A Cookbook for today?

On grey January days we must make our own fun. Today is a flat day that only seems to come to life when I go shopping, returning with bags of Italian lemons complete with their bottle-green leaves [and] craggy lumps of Crockhamdale and snow-white Ticklemore cheeses from Neal’s Yard Dairy…People get down this time of year, but even today there were clementines heavy with juice and bunches of narcissi to cheer us up. There is good stuff if you are prepared to go and find it.

-Nigel Slater,  The Kitchen Diaries

Maybe this will help me face the scrimmage at Trader Joe’s tonight. Maybe I’ll even buy lemons!

Tuesday Knitting Roundup: Socks For Me

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When you mostly knit socks for other people, it can take a while to finish your own. Case in point: This pair, last seen in progress nearly a year ago:

Yarn was Opal brand, Sweet & Spicy 3 – Safran color and it was just your usual 64-stitch sock pattern. It was also a total accident that I got the stripes to match up on the feet (one leg got a leeetle bit longer than the other).

After I finished these and realized I don’t have a lot of pink and purple in my everyday wardrobe, I thought, “What if I made a neutral pair of socks to wear with ankle boots or even clogs?”

So I started some:

Yarn is Madeleine Tosh Sock in Modern Fair Isle; pattern is the Impossible Girl Socks by Madeleine Gannon, just to add some interest to all the neutrality.

Check in again in about a year and I should have these finished!

Spring Fever

Karen

There’s two feet of fresh snow in the mountains and it was a cold hike on Sunday, but I’m d-u-n with winter. It’s going to be March this week; I’m looking forward to projects made with linen and finding some sunshine. (Toby agrees!)

Friday Links

Karen

1. For your Friday long read, a series of essays by artist Hillary Predko about making things, waste, the global supply chain. It’s a little rambling, but it introduces the concept of “kipple,” (aka stuff–a term from Phillip K. Dick) and has so much in there that’s on my mind lately, too:

I’m worried about extraction, climate change, waste, and entropy. But leaving Yiwu, feeling convinced that the maker ideology that had inspired my work for years was politically ineffective, and feeling convinced that the designing and manufacturing of products and commodities is legitimately a bad business that has negative impact on the planet, I still wanted to work designing and producing objects. Our societies, and our daily lives are entirely shaped by material culture. Despite all my frustrations, sitting down to create something from scratch is one of the greatest pleasures in my life.

(I think I found this from Kottke? I’ve been sitting on the link for a while wanting to finish the whole series.)

2. Related, even if there’s an inescapable supply chain behind the things you use to create:

(via)

The Case For A Minimalist Wardrobe

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With my sewing and planning I am trying to be a lot more conscious about what I consume, but the fact remains that I still am consuming, still thinking about the next project, still wanting to wear something new.

I do think that desire to CONSUME is more under control with sewing than with heading to J. Crew to buy something, but maybe I need to adopt the “lean closet”/10-piece wardrobe I see talked about on the fashun blogs.

What got me thinking about all that? Oh, just seeing these photographs from artist Libby Oliver, of people wearing every piece of clothing they own:

(You can see more here; h/t to SwissMiss)

It’s like that scene with the Junk Lady in Labyrinth where Sarah gets weighed down with all her possessions and she can only escape when she realizes, “It’s all junk”…

Wednesday Project Roundup: Loungewear Capsule

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I’ve mentioned the StyleBee blog here before and how helpful many of her exercises have been. She also put together a “loungewear capsule,” which intrigued me but also sounded a little too fashion-blogger-y. However, she made some good points:

I’ve always felt my ‘after work’ clothes were blah and uninspired but never did anything to change that. I figured, who sees it? Who cares? But the truth is that I do and the crazy thing is I end up wearing these pieces almost as much as I do my core closet items (if not more!).

And I kept coming back to her VERY GOOD POINT to make sure your loungewear doesn’t show your pet’s hair. I’d been living in the same pair of terry Hudson pants I first sewed and a black hoodie (Toby is not black). I needed a few more pieces so I decided to make them all work together.

The “inspo” (since I’m going all fashion blogger today–image source is lost to the depths of Pinterest):

And the capsule:

I started with another pair of Hudsons in a really wonderful Telio bamboo knit–it has way better drape and recovery than the terry pair. It’s exactly Toby color, too:

The two tops are the Thread Theory Finlayson pullover–aka the same pattern I made for Doc for Christmas. (Yes, we are the couple with matching loungewear now.) I made the hoodie version for me in a gray fleece from Amazon:

 

And I made the shawl collar version in a drapey French terry blend from Fashion Fabrics Club via Amazon (I had some gift cards to use up):

I got fancy with the facings in my versions and used scraps of my favorite projects–Liberty and ikat. (The pattern has fantastic instructions for adding twill tape and making a professional finish.)

These three, combined with the original lounge pants and that flannel shirt, have been keeping me feeling pulled together at home for a couple of weeks now. The color palette means everything works together. Even better–all the cat hair is invisible now!

Snow

Karen

Well, I guess when you say you’re ready for spring, you get sixteen inches of snow instead. As we all say in Utah, “We need the water,” and I didn’t have to drive anywhere so it worked out.

I’ve been in an Issa mood so here is a haiku about snow (from this dated but excellent site):

falling snow–
yesterday it wasn’t there
“House for Rent” sign

Adulting

Karen

Kottke posted John Barlow’s list of “25 rules of adult behavior” last week and I immediately printed it out to hang in my office (because, sadly, that’s where I spend the most time and also where I can forget I’m a grown up–see rule 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 17….ahem).

1. Be patient. No matter what.
2. Don’t badmouth: Assign responsibility, never blame. Say nothing behind another’s back you’d be unwilling to say, in exactly the same tone and language, to his face.
3. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
4. Expand your sense of the possible.
5. Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
6. Expect no more of anyone than you yourself can deliver.
7. Tolerate ambiguity.
8. Laugh at yourself frequently.
9. Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
10. Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
11. Give up blood sports.
12. Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Do not endanger it frivolously. And never endanger the life of another.
13. Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.)
14. Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
16. Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.
17. Praise at least as often as you disparage.
18. Never let your errors pass without admission.
19. Become less suspicious of joy.
20. Understand humility.
21. Forgive.
22. Foster dignity.
23. Live memorably.
24. Love yourself.
25. Endure.