Thursday Poem

By in poems

The details in this one just cut you to the heart.

 

And the are angry

by Fiona Wright

and they apologise in all their emails

and they remember where they put their keys

and they buy vegetables and milk

and they’re assumed to be on birth control

and they write perhaps and arguably and in a sense

and they are sympathetic

and they have internal ultrasounds

and they carry band-aids in their purses

and they break big notes before they go to dinner

and they match their underwear

and they make pots of tea

and they sit narrowly on trains and buses

and they pretend to talk on phones when they walk home

and they run on treadmills

and they don’t interrupt

and they don’t ask for exceptions

and their disposable razors come only in pink

and the doctors ask if they feel anxious

and they desire

and they are angry.

Fabrics For Patio Life

By in sewing

Going back to work after a fun vacation is always hard, so I’m daydreaming about buying all the fabric in desert stripes, making wide-legged pants and caftans, and living my best life on a patio somewhere.

From Stonemountain

From Blackbird Fabrics

Stonemountain again

Blackbird Fabrics

 

Don’t worry, I won’t actually buy these fabrics because I already have SO MUCH FABRIC. (Except maybe I could buy that first one and sew it next year?)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Last-Minute Thematically-Appropriate Swimsuit

By in sewing, Tuesday Project Roundup

After our plans shifted from a camping weekend to a resort weekend, I got a wild idea to make a new swimsuit for it. I looked around in my stash and saw that I still had half a yard of some poly knit I’d ordered 18 months ago for some first test pairs of undies (before I switched to cotton). The fabric won’t hold up to heavy chlorine exposure but the print was perfect for the desert:

Handmade bikini in a cactus print from Spoonflower

I downloaded the pattern Monday night, assembled it, and cut out the main fabric and the lining. Tuesday night I sewed the bottoms and Wednesday night I did the top. (I was able to finish early on Wednesday because Doc offered to take my car over for a trip check “so I could keep sewing.” <3)

I had everything else I needed in the stash: some soft cups saved from a sports bra, nude tricot lining, elastic, and a stretch needle [this was a great tip and this collection of tips was very helpful too]. I used the Megan Nielsen Cottesloe Swimsuit for the pattern and love the fit–very comfortable and that high rise bottom/long line top is pretty trendy:

Woman in a Megan Nielsen Cottesloe Swimsuit

Look! I match the scenery!

I loved this whole project–the focus of getting it done, the fabric, the fun I had while wearing it. I think every vacation needs a new bikini now!

Better Than Camping

By in vacations

Doc and I had planned a camping trip to Great Basin National Park with my friend who lives in St. George*, but then a cold front came through and we realized the high at the park was going to be 56 degrees–so we punted and went to stay with her instead.

She works at a resort there so we spent most of Saturday by the pool and getting spa treatments, then walked a labyrinth (!) and had dinner we did not have to cook over a campfire. Sunday morning we saw some petroglyphs, had a civilized brunch, and then drove home, not smelling like wood smoke.

I can get used to this kind of “camping.”

Yuccas in bloom in Snow Canyon

A woman with a drink lying by the pool

A labyrinth made of red rocks

Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs

Red Mountain at sunset

 

*This was my first time doing anything more than passing through St. George–we usually go to Moab in the eastern corner of the state instead of heading west.

I surprised myself by really loving it: the desert was in bloom from the wet spring we had, there were exotic plantings of mimosas and palms and oleanders all through town, and I fell in love with a retirement community that was built to blend in with the landscape.

Friday Links

By in Friday Unrelated Information

1. It’s the Summer Solstice, the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere. Get some sun/star damage today.

2. Adding to Wednesday’s post about not putting your own story in the middle of someone’s grief:

(by Carissa Potter Carlson)

 

3. I just learned that The Paris Review has an “advice” column that matches poems to people who write in looking for guidance. Check it out: Poetry Rx

Learning!

By in words like "swell"

I’m on Twitter a little more these days because I cleaned up my feed with this tool and now I get much, much less angry politics and more delightful content like this:

(That account is full of great word facts, such as why a type of paper is called “foolscap“, something I have wondered over a lifetime of reading British novels.)

Supporting Sad People

By in Uncategorized

I had a dentist appointment about a month after my mom died. When I told the hygienist about her death, the hygienist asked me how old I was and then told me all about how she lost her mom when she was 25. It didn’t make me feel like we were together in our grief, even though I’m sure she meant it like that; instead, it felt like a grief contest.
I saw a HuffPo article about this very same thing a couple of weeks ago: The Mistake I Made With My Grieving Friend.

When she began to share her raw emotions, I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say, so I defaulted to a subject with which I was comfortable: myself.

I may have been trying to empathize, at least on a conscious level, but what I really did was draw focus away from her anguish and turn the attention to me.

It made me realize how often I do the same thing, thinking I’m sharing my experience and being supportive. But now that I’ve experienced it, I realize I just need to listen. If I need to say anything, I say: “That sounds hard.”

30 Minutes A Day

By in sewing

I’ve been feeling like there isn’t enough time to sew all the things I want to sew and it’s been stressing me out. (Admittedly, I keep thinking of MORE things I want to sew and buying fabric for them, which is piling up and adding to the problem. I’m making a rule for the summer: NO NEW FABRIC. )

So I’ve adopted something I saw discussed in the Instagram sewing world: “30 minutes a day.” There’s a Pattern Review forum for it, which says:

You can make your own rules – do you want to sew every day? Or does an average number of hours over the course of the week or month work better? Are you only including actual sewing or do you include shopping for fabric, the prep work, the pattern alterations, organizing your sewing space, etc.?

I’ve been trying to get some time in daily and I am indeed counting pattern prep, cutting, and even threading the serger as sewing–because it’s all part of the process.

With just a little bit of time every day I was able to finish a shirt for Doc in just over a week (!) so there’s clearly something to this idea of small, daily action towards your goals. Hmm….

Friday Links

By in Friday Unrelated Information

1. There is a mass of something metallic in an impact crater on the Moon?! Cue the Transformers (or Armageddon) movie jokes.

2. Via Kottke, who was appreciating the manners of Keanu Reeves, I learned about “manner hands” in South Korea, aka not actually touching someone in photos, just hovering your hands above them. Manner hands for everyone!

3. Scanned pages of a French “how to draw animals” book (via Austin Kleon). Who else wants to print some out and just spend an afternoon practicing?

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