1. Via Kottke, I learned about shoudan koudou, or precision synchronized walking, and I think this is a sport that needs to catch on in America.
2. Words from Lisa Congdon that I need to remember:
1. Via Kottke, I learned about shoudan koudou, or precision synchronized walking, and I think this is a sport that needs to catch on in America.
2. Words from Lisa Congdon that I need to remember:
I’ve made three functional pairs of gym tights and am working on numbers four and five, so it was time to make some tops to go with them.
The front two are the Greenstyle Creations Solo Tank, in leftover leopard nylon tricot and a Polartec PowerDry mesh. I’ve made three patterns now from Greenstyle and I am really impressed by their drafting. This tank pattern is a dead ringer for the $45 (!) EcoMesh tank from Outdoor Voices and the fit is maybe even better.
The one in the back is the free Durango Tank from Hey June in a wicking performance knit (which is really nice!). The details on this one make it look really professional and I like the lines, but I think I need to make an FBA if I make it again–the fit just isn’t quite as perfect.
I got all three of these done with my Monday off a couple weeks ago. Doing the arm and neck binding on the Solo Tanks made me wish for a coverstitch machine, but the serger and a twin needle in the regular sewing machine did just fine. (I don’t need a $600 specialty machine, right? Or do I?)
My nephew is EIGHT today! He’s very much a kid now, not a little boy, but he is such a delight.
As I’ve said before, you can’t put anything over on him. If you show him the why behind something and let him see it, then he’s just fine with it–but he’s not about to accept “because I said so” as a reason for anything.
He already has a very specific sense of style, just like his grandma. I’m standing by in case he ever needs help with his curly hair (I didn’t know what to do with mine until I was in my 20s) but he is very clear that he likes his “Einstein hair” just as it is. He also loves color; when he was at my house recently, he picked up some yarn in turquoise and royal blue. I had to stop and admire the pairing and think, “Huh, I never would have put those together, but they really work.”
You can see the love of color in his art, too, where he takes after his dad and grandpa. He also loves to engineer things (like his mom) and he’s always reading.
Happy birthday, Skyler! We all love you so much.
1. This week I learned about “mummy portraits” and they’re fascinating–understudied and a mix of styles: “As far as scholars can tell, the mummy portraits are the first paintings that depict lifelike, highly individualized subjects and demonstrate a fusion of funerary and artistic traditions between the Greco-Roman and Classical worlds.”
2. On the other end of the cultural spectrum, Bon Appetit has a history of Buca di Beppo, or “How a Lutheran from central Illinois created a genre-defining Italian-American restaurant.”
I signed up for journalist Ann Helen Peterson’s newsletter a while ago; each week has a “just trust me” link with no explanation. This week’s link was an essay by Victoria Gannon about working as a contract UX writer in San Francisco. It is wonderful and awful and captures exactly what being an outsider at a mostly male company feels like (see also: Pixar’s “Purl“).
From “The Metrics of Backpacks“:
I am in a foreign country; these are my hosts. I study their dialects and graph their inflections, seeking fluency. I listen as they discuss fishing trips and ways to get their wives to watch science-fiction movies and how annoyed they get when she eats their leftover burrito from the fridge. I offer up pieces of my own life that I think they will like: stories of my boyfriend’s obsessive CD collection, memories of the science-fiction movies my brother made me watch as a child. I too cringed at the green of the Emperor’s blood in Flash Gordon; I also sat in awe when the owl in Clash of the Titans moved its brass wings. But this is belonging by proxy, a male escort at my side; it is never inherent.
This is a good one. Maybe because I want a dog, maybe because I’m realizing grief is just…going to stay with me. And that will be OK. (We will be OK…eventually.)
Talking To Grief
by Denise Levertov
Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don’t know you’ve been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
You could pay $69.50 for these “cover up pants” from Madewell:
Or you could get two yards of this striped linen from JoAnn (with a coupon for 60% off, if you’re lucky*) and make a non-sheer version for $17.
*Reader, I bought this fabric.