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I have been saying for a very long time that I would not make quilts. Then I took up sewing. But I still swore I would not make a quilt, no matter how pretty they are, because, seriously, how much more can I realistically take on? But, you know, I have all these scraps and I can't just throw them away. So, a scrap quilt. That's ok, right?
In this post, I said you could slap me if I ever bought fabric specifically for a quilt.
Well. Go ahead. I can take it.
I came across Oh, Fransson just as she was starting a very detailed quilt tutorial and it was just too much temptation. And I am weak. I had lunch with my sister on Sunday and used the excuse of being in Ann Arbor and having plenty of time to pick fabrics to indulge my weakness. It was quite fun, shuffling fabric bolts around until I had a combination that I liked (even more fun was how impressed the ladies/experts were). The composition ended up hinging on the piece in the middle of the top row, it took quite a balancing act to get it to fit in, but I think it works.
I really hope I hate every stinking minute of this.
Earlier today, Pajiba posted Yahoo's list of 100 Movies You Should See Before You Die.
12 Angry Men (1957)2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) -- My mother claims to have fallen asleep while 8 months pregnant when she saw this one. I don't think she needed pregnancy as an excuse.
The 400 Blows (1959)8 ½ (1963)A Hard Day’s Night (1964) -- I thought I'd seen this one, but no. It was Help! Bugger.
The African Queen (1952) -- Bogart and Kate. What more could you ask for?
Alien (1979)All About Eve (1950)Annie Hall (1977)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Battle of Algiers (1967)The Bicycle Thief (1948)Blade Runner (1982)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Blow Up (1966)Blue Velvet (1986) -- A great movie I will never see again.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Breathless (1960)The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Casablanca (1942)
Chinatown (1974)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)Die Hard (1988)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Double Indemnity (1944)Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Duck Soup (1933)E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Enter the Dragon (1973)The Exorcist (1973)Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
The French Connection (1971)
The Godfather (1972)The Godfather, Part II (1974)Goldfinger (1964)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)Goodfellas (1990)
The Graduate (1967)
Grand Illusion (1938)Groundhog Day (1993)
In the Mood For Love (2001)It Happened One Night (1934)It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Jaws (1975)
King Kong (1933)
The Lady Eve (1941)Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Lord of the Rings (2001,2002,2003)
M (1931)M*A*S*H (1970)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Matrix (1999)
Modern Times (1936)Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
Network (1976)Nosferatu (1922)On the Waterfront (1954)One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)Paths of Glory (1958)Princess Mononoke (1999) -- ?????
Psycho (1960)Pulp Fiction (1994)
Raging Bull (1980)Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Raise the Red Lantern (1992) -- I might even have the poster for this (I worked at a movie theater when it came out).
Rashomon (1951)Rear Window (1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Rocky (1976)Roman Holiday (1953)
Saving Private Ryan (1998) -- Aside from a pretty spectacular (and realistic) opening scene, I thought this was a standard Hollywood war movie.
Schindler’s List (1993)The Searchers (1956)Seven Samurai (1954)The Shawshank Redemption (1994) -- I know I am in the minority, but while it is entertaining, this one seems more like a very good TV movie to me.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) -- and I never really got the fuss over this one either.
Singin’ in the Rain (1952) -- Really????
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Some Like It Hot (1959)The Sound of Music (1965)
Star Wars (1977)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)The Third Man (1949)This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Titanic (1997) -- 2+ hours of my life I will never get back.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Toy Story (1995) -- Really?
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Vertigo (1958)
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Wild Strawberries (1957)Wings of Desire (1988) --
I can't count this: every time it has come on, I've fallen asleep. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)The World of Apu (1959) -- ?????
I've seen 54 of these. I don't agree with them all, or even very many. Some movies I think are missing: His Girl Friday, The Apartment, 28 Weeks (switch Silence of the Lambs with this one), Say Anything, The Unforgiven, The Incredibles, Harold and Maude. And so on.
What say you?
Usually we pay the $100 or so to have it professionally closed, mainly because the water lines need to be blown out and Len never felt comfortable doing that, but this year we needed to buy a new cover, which would have added a couple hundred bucks. Len decided that, rather than spending $300-$400 on something we aren't even sure we want to keep, he would try closing the pool himself this year. He did fine, but obviously neglected a crucial step. A couple of weeks ago the liner finally failed completely. Which finally forced a decision.
He made an appointment with the pool people (who we really highly recommend by the way, if you live around Jackson, MI) for an estimate on replacing the liner and talked to our neighbor who is a contractor. It turns out the neighbor can use most of the concrete (I don't know what for), which saves us having to cart it to where ever one takes concrete. Len has canceled the estimate for the liner and he and Dick (the neighbor) will be doing in the pool.
The only disadvantage is that Len was looking forward to perfecting his pool heater.
This, when it is finished and not lumpy, will be the Shetland Triangle by Evelyn Clark (and the only reason I have Wrap Style, which is a bit annoying). The yarn is Alpaca with a Twist Fino, which I am pretty sure is my favorite lace yarn. So shiny!
And Go With the Flow socks by, um, Evelyn Clark (a coincidence I did not notice until now because I am dim). These are in Favorite Socks (and a 2005 issue of Interweave). The yarn is Louet Gems, which seems to be my go-to sock yarn.
Here is a pretty (dead) tree from this fall, to try and make up for the terrible pictures of the last post:
I finally got around to taking pictures of some of my recent sewing. The pictures are terrible, but, well, there you are.
This is another AB Barcelona skirt from a rose print I found very cheap at Big Box Craft Store (BBCS). This time I put half inch darts in the waist, which helps it fit in the waist better. My next edit will be to change the angle a bit so it comes away from my hips a little sooner.
This one is Simplicity 3688, a reprint of a 1940's pattern. The woman in the drawing is an Amazon, the skirt is much longer on me. The fabric is black corduroy with white dots and is quite elegant with a pair of heels (as opposed to the sneakers, which do not work at all).
A wrap skirt (McCalls 5430), also corduroy.
And finally, the best pair of pajama pants ever:
Yes, that is Noah's Ark in the worst 1970's color palette. For some reason, I have held onto this sheet from my childhood for all these years, schlepping it from place to place. Why?
And why, I would like to know, is Noah's Ark a children's story? God was so pissed off at humans that He killed all but a select few, and all of the animals, except those few who managed to make it on a boat. That's a kid's story, cute enough to be made into sheets? Yeah. Jonah and the big fish (or whale) isn't very cute either.
The 2009 edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States arrived at my library yesterday. Since I still have not managed to take my camera out of my purse -- and what is the point of telling you about skirt trouble without pictures of the stupid thing -- I will subject you to some fun statistics.
Per Capita Consumption of Beverages. The obvious statistic here is bottled water: in 1980 Americans drank 2.7 gallons of bottled water; in 2006, 27.6. The big jump in consumption happened around 1995. Alcohol consumption has dropped a bit, from 28.3 gallons in 1980 to 25.3 in 2006; wine consumption went up from 2.1 gallons to 2.3 (in 1983, "wine" includes "wine coolers", a disgusting invention, but that inclusion doesn't explain anything, since consumption was down in the 1990s). Beer and distilled spirit consumption went down, beer by 2.7 gallons to 21.6 and distilled spirits by .6 gallon (1.4 gallons per person in 2006). We have consumed a steady half gallon of vegetable juice per person per year since 2000 (no data before that), someone has been drinking my share since I'd rather have a wine cooler.
Per Capita Consumption of Meat and Eggs: The amount of red meat (beef, lamb, veal and pork) went down from 126.4 pounds per capita in 1980 to 109.9 pounds in 2006. The amount of poultry (chicken and turkey, boneless, trimmed weight) went up significantly, from 40.8 pounds in 1980 to 74.7 pounds in 2006. Neither is surprising, but it is interesting to me that red meat consumption didn't go down as much as poultry consumption went up -- we aren't replacing red meat with chicken. Fish and shellfish consumption went up by 4 pounds. The one that really blow me away though, is egg consumption: the number of shell eggs consumed per year dropped from 236 in 1980 to 177, but processed egg consumption grew from 35 to 73. People eat more Egg Beaters? Yuck.
And there you are, just a small snippet of the interesting information to be found in the Statistical Abstract. Until I worked here, I had no idea a table of numbers could suck me in so completely.
I really cannot explain my love for Fluevog. I would snort at any other shoes this expensive, yet in face of these fabulous, funky shoes, I am helpless.
I did hold off on ordering another pair, since they are not quite in my size, but it was very, very hard. I will probably get a dressform instead.
Instead of a real post, how about some flowers on a rainy day?
It turns out, if you add pennies to the water, tulips won't fall apart. These have been on my desk for a week.
Gwen died last night. She didn't really bounce back from her last steroid shot a couple of weeks ago and on Tuesday night it became painfully obvious that her time had come. We took her to the vet last night; she is being cremated and we will bury her in the Spring.Gwennie had a way of always making her presence known, for better or worse. She could be neurotic, crabby and extremely shy. She was also pretty, cuddly, and could put up with Judy's insanity far better than anyone else. She peed on Len's dirty clothes (and sometimes our clean clothes) and had taken to smacking the dog. We'll miss her terribly.
I've got nothing. Nothing interesting. I'm halfway through legwarmer #2. No pictures. I made a black skirt with white polka dots. No pictures. The snow is gone and the potholes are out. And my sinuses hurt. I'm a barrel of laughs.
So to kill some time I will try this 25 Things thing that is going around. My brother did it. Sharon did it. What the heck.
1. I'm terrible with money. I'm not in that much debt, but only because no one is stupid enough to give me very much credit.
2. While I'm easily annoyed, I don't have much of a temper.
3. I hate playing games. Not only do I hate losing (which I usually do), but I hate winning too. It seems to make whoever I played against angry. I don't see how that is fun.
4. I am the only coffee drinker in my immediate family. None of my siblings, or parents, or Len drink the stuff.
5. I tried to give up coffee once. It lasted 6 weeks, but I missed making it.
6. I don't drink much pop (or soda, whatever).
7. I drink a lot of water.
8. Easily my favorite part of my job is looking for Vital Statistics. Did you know that the largest average number of births occurred on a Friday in 1984? The fewest was on Sunday. 10,681 and 8,517 respectively.
9. Which leads to a question: why would anyone care how many babies were born on an average Sunday?
10. I am a feminist.
11. Of the radical variety. Which does not mean I hate men. Feminism has nothing to do with men. Which is a radical thought in and of itself.
12. Do you ever notice in ads trying to sell cleaning products or almost anything having to do with domestic scut work, it is always women doing (and enjoying) the work? Feh. I use vinegar and baking soda.
13. I hate Valentines Day.
14. I am terrible at remembering birthdays and anniversaries. My mother usually reminds me about my father's birthday and they have been divorced for over 30 years. Sad.
15. I never get sick.
16. But I've had a sinus headache since Friday and it was bad enough to keep me home yesterday.
17. I have a tattoo, which isn't a huge surprise. It is a drawing by Hannes Bok, who illustrated Science Fiction and Fantasy books in the '40s, '50s and '60s (including some by L. Ron Hubbard).
18. I'm not a fall-apart kind of gal, but I cry really easily.
19. I don't have a library card.
20. I'm on Facebook, but I didn't use my last name.
21. I have a cell phone which I usually forget to turn on, or if I turn it on, it runs out of battery power and I forget to charge it.
22. I don't like to talk on the phone (Len does, which annoys the piss out of me).
23. 25 random pointless things is hard to come up with.
24. I just ordered all of the Paul Simon albums I didn't already have on CD. Hearts and Bones, One Trick Pony, Still Crazy After All These Years, and There Goes Rhymin' Simon. I have the LPs, but I don't quite know how to operate Len's stereo equipment (I have to turn two things on to operate the radio, which is my limit for complexity).
25. I like beer and I have expensive taste. I don't drink much, so why waste the one beer I will drink tonight on something cheap?
That is all.
I think that covers all of my media bases!
Music: I've gotten a couple of CDs recently which I am enjoying very much:
Uncle Tupelo, No Depression: This is Uncle Tupelo's first album and they sound like a really, really good bar band, a good solid fusion of country and punk (and which I think founded the genre "Alt Country"), coming down somewhat more in favor of the country. It is great fun and makes driving very enjoyable. Jeff Tweedy went on to found Wilco and Jeff Ferrar founded Sun Volt. Apparently it was quite the messy breakup -- you gotta love musician egos!
Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago: This album wound up on several Best Of 2008 lists, but I resisted it for awhile. The premise sounds awfully bleak: singer songwriter retreats to a cabin in North Wisconsin during the winter to recuperate from a year of heartbreak and major illness and winds up recording an album. The result is not nearly as sorrowful as you might think, it is lovely and it sounds like winter. Not the grinding winter of now, the curl up on the couch, in front of a fire with a cat (or a calm dog), wrapped in a quilt, drinking something warm and reading your favorite book kind of winter. Warm, healing, and comforting.
Movies: Also two recent movies. We finally saw Juno. Twice. I'd heard good things, and was not disappointed. I appreciated, in particular, Juno's relationship with her stepmother (played by the great Allison Janney). It is a small thing, but I'm pretty sensitive to how stepmothers are portrayed -- I have one, who I like a lot -- and this movie got the relationship (at least as I experienced it) really well.
Darjeeling Limited has been on HBO recently. It's directed by Wes Anderson who did The Royal Tannenbaums, which I did not much care for. It is odd, sweet, funny and heartbreaking. Tannenbaums seemed quirky for its own sake, but it works here.
Books: It turns out, going to a bookstore while bored is a lot like going to a grocery store while hungry. I came away with The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson, which I have not started yet, and I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, which I am in the middle of (very funny). If you were paying attention (not that you would be), I am now in the middle of three books, which is not a good idea. The other two are Consider the Lobster and Traffic. It seems I am in a non-fiction phase.
TV: I don't really have much to say about this, except that DirecTV (our satellite provider) will be showing all seven seasons of Trailer Park Boys on Thursdays at 10:00. This show is wrong is so many ways (in one episode a father and his 10 year old daughter try to give up smoking. Hilarity ensues), but really damn funny. It stupid, wrong, foul mouthed comedy is your thing, I highly recommend you check it out. If not, stay far far away from this.
I don't know if it is hormones, the never ending winter, the fun combination of sick cat* and sick mother**, or what, but I am not in a good place today. It doesn't help that everything I've tried to do at work has been full of complications: my computer decided to stop speaking to one of my printers, when our tech guy tried to fix it, my computer quit speaking to any printer. I was working on a list of new publications on our work blog, which is not nearly as user friendly as Blogger, formatting is a bit of a pain, and it does not autosave, occasionally, because the software wants to test my will, the post goes blank and all remnants of what I spent the hour on are gone. Good times. It goes on. I will not bore you.
*The steroids kicked in and Gwen is doing fine (aside from failing the drug test for the Tour de France). She is eating and looks quite well, it is easy to forget that anything is wrong with her at all. She goes in for her next round this weekend.
**My has had a very large kidney stone for a few months, surgery was postponed for a variety of reasons, but last Tuesday the thing shifted and it became very necessary to get it out. She had surgery on Wednesday. Basically, they do a small incision, insert a tube, blast the stone apart and suck out the bits. They don't usually get all the bits in one go, so she got to keep the tube and she is going in for round 2 on Friday, so I will be spending this weekend in South Haven.
I had planned on going out there this past weekend, and in fact, turned down a sewing date with Stef, but my brother was there and my mom suspected she would be needing me soon (trust me, it was for the best, I was not good company), so I finally made a pillow for Lizzy's new(ish) kennel. Fred loves it.
Lizzy likes it, too, when she gets to use it. I also screwed up cutting out a skirt, 'cos that is the way it is going these days.
Oh well. At least I don't have a tube sticking out of my back.
It is a teeny egg.With a hole pecked in it.
Thank you, everyone, for your comments about Gwen. She's doing ok for now, eating more, looking better, and loony as ever (bless her wee little heart).
Anyway. As promised, I have knitting for you, with pictures. Very exciting.
Are these not the prettiest mittens you have ever seen? Not because I'm such a great knitter, but the design is so irresistable (and free). I used Jo Sharp's Alpaca Silk Georgette (Devon, Woodland and Pond, to be exact).
Should you decide to make a pair of these of your very own (and of course you should), I have a couple of suggestions: buy an extra ball of the main color. And there is a round of increases in the flower band, mark that on your chart before you start knitting or you will end up having to go back to do it, twice (then again, I am a bit dim).
They are nice and warm, a little big, but they do fit perfectly over my gloves, which is how I tend to wear mittens anyway. I'm in love with them, but will gladly give them up for warm weather.
I have started the Traveling Stitch Leg Warmers (yes, leg warmers. Shut up.). They are in the Knit So Fine book, but also appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Interweave.
The back lozenge is what seduced me. I figure, under boots, no one will know they are footless. The yarn is Louet Gems sportweight.
Underneath all this knitted goodness is the beginnings of a skirt which did not work out. At all. Suffice to say, when measuring yourself for a straight skirt, take into account your hips, especially if, like mine, they are ample. Moving on.
On December 24, Len took Gwen to the vet because she had lost a couple of pounds, rarely a good sign. They did blood work and checked her kidneys, all of which were normal. The vet didn't think it was serious at that time since she seemed to be eating and drinking, and her weight was not dangerously low. I took her back two weeks later, hoping she had at least maintained her weight, but instead she had lost 4 more ounces. At that time we got an appetite stimulant and a prediction that a liver ultrasound was next, since that was were her last major illness was.
Well, I took her in for another re-check on Friday. The problem is not in her liver. There are masses in the lymph nodes around her intestines, too many to be surgically removed. The two options are chemotherapy, which might give her a year, or bi-weekly steroid injections, which should give her a few months of decent quality of life. We were not expecting this and I am still in shock.
I took these yesterday. They are unusual, in that you can see her eyes. Her pupils are usually much more dilated.
Knitting tomorrow..really. I have pictures!
One of the best pictures I took last year was of two lawn chairs in some friend's backyard. I think they thought it was photographic evidence of laziness. I thought it was pretty.
My favorite picture so far this year is evidence of our laziness:
Come on in! The water's fine!
Sick Animals: With so many of them, it shouldn't be a big surprise when several are sick at once. Lizzy had some sort of stomach thing and she made messes too disgusting to report. She'll put anything in her mouth, so who knows what caused it, but it is over now. Thank god.
Judy, bless her heart, developed an eye infection. I managed to corral her into a crate (with no injuries!) and got her up to our vet, only to find out I would have to put goo into her nasty, weepy, red, swollen eye. Which was awesome, since I happen to have a phobia about eyes (I don't wear contacts for a reason) and Judy has a phobia of humans. I was supposed to do this goo thing 2 - 3 times a day. I've managed to get it into her eye three times in the last week. Luckily that was enough and her eye is looking a lot better since I can't get near her anymore. Plus the dog ate the eye medicine (like I said, she'll eat anything).
And Gwen. On Christmas Eve, Len had taken her to the vet because she had lost a couple of pounds (at which time we found out she is blind, and don't think I haven't tried to poke her in the eye, "yep! Still blind!") I thought she was looking better and maybe had gained a little weight, or at least not lost more, but when I took her for a re-check on Saturday (between blizzards), it turned out she had lost 4 ounces. Also she has an ear infection (not unusual for her). So we were sent home with an appetite stimulant, ear goo and more eye goo for Judy. If she doesn't improve we will need to do a liver ultrasound, because she has had liver problems in the past.
At least Simon and Fred are healthy. For now.
Vanpool: I tried to do the right thing, I really did. In November I joined a van pool, on December 19 I dropped out. To make a long, gruesome story short, the driver is reckless and I got very tired of wondering what would happen next. Pulling out in traffic, merging before it was her turn (into the lane the semi in front of us would have merged into), she had some serious Right of Way issues. Two other people had already dropped out because of her driving, but used other excuses, and the remaining members of the pool don't seem to have a problem with her, I am the crazy bitch whose standards are beyond high. I was a bit, um, blunt when I told her why I was leaving. I'm not usually confrontational, but I thought she needed to know. We had a big e-mail argument about it, and I don't think it did much good for her driving, but I feel much better. And now I am back to being an evil, single driver, gas guzzling* American.
*Not really, my tiny Ford Escort still gets 31-34 miles per gallon.
Oh look, here is Lizzy:
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do gross things in my kennel!"
